Grimblethorpe Hall

Grimblethorpe Hall is a small country house dating back to approximately 1620, with alterations and an addition made in the mid-19th century. The house is constructed of red brick in English bond, with ashlar dressings, a slate roof, four wall stacks, and a single ridge stack. All the stacks have diamond-set shafts and dentillated cornices. The building follows a U-shaped plan and comprises two storeys and attics, with cellars beneath.

The principal east front has eight bays and a moulded plinth. Collared pilasters with moulded bases divide each bay, doubled at the ends. The ground floor features eight paired 19th-century windows with plain sashes in chamfered surrounds, separated by mullions. The first floor has seven similar windows, one of which has been blocked. Above the upper windows are 19th-century segmental brick arches. Gable elevations show slightly projecting pairs of flues and moulded brick string courses, with chimneys linked by plain parapets.

The rear elevation features two slightly projecting paired bays at the ends, and evidence in the right-hand bay suggests that the original windows were set within segmental brick relieving arches. The staircase is lit by three ascending cross-mullioned windows with leaded iron casement lights. A 19th-century service block is located to the left.

The interior retains an early 17th-century oak staircase that rises in four flights around a three-sided oblong stair hall. The staircase has large square, rusticated newels surmounted by obelisk finials and large balls, with obelisk balusters. The landing gallery balustrade has a panelled base and ornamented strapwork at ceiling level. One room retains full-height early 17th-century oak panelling, divided by Ionic pilasters, with a dentillated frieze featuring strapwork and bead designs. The fireplace here has flanking Doric columns with zigzag capitals, a mantle surmounted by two eared and shouldered panels with dog and griffin scrolls and broken pediments with cartouches, and a strapwork frieze. A timber overthrow above a doorway to an adjacent room contains a central human face flanked by bird motifs. Another central room has full-height and three-quarter height panelling, with panelled doors and scrolled cartouches above. The first floor contains two oak overmantels: one with fluted pilasters, eared and shouldered panels with cartouches, scrolled decoration based on human heads, and 17th-century Delft tiles; the other is plainer but features a pair of perspective-styled arches on its panels.

It is thought the house may have been built for the financier, Sir Ralph Maddestone, who held the Manor of Grimblethorpe at the end of the 16th century.