Donington Hall And Attached Chapel, Stables And Game Room

Former mansion with attached chapel and service wings, now offices. Built 1790–93 by William Wilkins the Elder for Francis Rawdon Hastings, second Earl of Moira and first Marquess of Hastings. Refurbished 1981–82 for British Midland Airways.

The building is constructed of ashlar, with some plaster details, and has hipped slate roofs. The main house follows a courtyard plan, with the chapel projecting to the east and service and stable wings projecting to the north. Architectural embellishments are executed in the Perpendicular-Tudor style.

Main House

The principal wings rise to two storeys, with an 11-bay front facing south. Features include a chamfered plinth, moulded strings, and a coped parapet with three pierced and cusped roundels to each bay. Between the bays are octagonal buttresses topped with crenellated turrets and small panelled and gabled projections to the front. Larger turrets at the end and centre bays have blind panelling. The tall three-pane sashes, all renewed in the 20th century, are fitted with Tudor hoodmoulds. Upper windows have plaster aprons with cusped arched panels.

The wider central bay features three-light arched windows with cusped tracery and a central arched door, all in the Decorated style with crocketed ogee hoodmoulds, finials and carved head stops. Above these is an inscription frieze dated 1792 commemorating the gift of the estate from Hastings' uncle, Francis, Earl of Huntingdon. Above this is a large lunette with rose tracery and stained glass.

Projecting from the front of the centre bay is a taller porte-cochere with octagonal corner turrets, moulded arches, heraldic cusped roundels in the spandrels, and a ribbed vault. Above the vault is an upper chamber with five arched two-light windows to the front, two windows to each side, and a parapet with pierced roundels and finials. The east and west elevations of the main house are similar to the main front but without the elaborated centrepieces.

Chapel

The chapel is executed in the Early English-Decorated style and has four bays of tall two-light arched windows with cusped tracery and flanking blind lancets. The larger three-light east window follows a similar style, with all window surrounds fitted with shafts. A tall arched door is positioned to the left of the south front, with a moulded arch on shafts and traceried spandrels and panel above. The buttresses are reinforced with 20th-century wooden props. The east gable end has traceried battlements and cross finials, the left one missing.

Service and Stable Wings

The service and stable wings are roughcast or rendered and colourwashed, with slate roofs. The wing immediately to the north of the chapel has ashlar battlements on the east front, an octagonal bell-turret, and sash windows. To the north of this is a coach-house with a shaped gable, flanking stable bays and a mews courtyard. This has two-storey ranges with central pediments and 20th-century barred wooden casements.

Attached to the west side of the stables is a projecting passage leading to a small octagonal game room. The game room retains thrawls and a central heptagonal stand with game hooks and a frieze inscribed with the days of the week. Other service buildings have been stripped of fittings.

Interior

The interior of the house was much refurbished in 1981–82 but retains many original features. The entrance hall is in Gothick style with a groin vault on clustered corner shafts. It features a Gothick fireplace with blind-traceried gable, crockets, finial and coat-of-arms. Gothick doors have traceried panels and linenfold ornament. The entrance to the stair hall takes the same form as the main entrance to the house, with an ogee doorway, windows, and lunette, the latter with mirror glazing.

The stair hall is oval, with ceiling and frieze in the Adam style, and a 20th-century reproduction balustrade of wrought iron with lead ornament. The former dining room to the right has a segmental ceiling vault with shallow coffering, a marble fireplace with frieze of classical figures, and an end screen with Ionic columns of real porphyry scagliola. The drawing room to the left has a deeply coffered ceiling with large plaster rosettes, guilloche strips and scrolled cornice. Good panelled doors are set in panelled reveals.

The library retains bookshelves with Ionic pilasters and Jacobean-style fireplaces, but has a 20th-century ceiling. The chapel retains only fragments of former Gothick decoration.

Illustrated in Country Life, 22 March 1977, pages 828–830.