Pudleston Court

Pudleston Court is a country house dating from 1846-47, designed by Brearley of Liverpool for Elias Chadwick. The house is constructed of coursed pink sandstone rubble with grey dressed quoins, and has slate roofs with embattled parapets. It features stone stacks with grouped octagonal ashlar shafts.

The plan arranges principal rooms around a large central hall, entered on the north side through a porte-cochere and vestibule, with a tower above. A service wing is positioned on the west side. The architectural style is Castellated Tudor-Gothic.

The asymmetrical north front includes a three-storey tower to the left of centre, with an ashlar porte-cochere featuring four-centred arches, polygonal turrets, and battlements, displaying a shield on the front. A set-back blind wall is present on the left, containing a loop window on the first floor and a corbelled octagonal turret in the angle. A recessed bay on the right of the tower has two windows on the ground floor and an oriel window above, complete with a moulded corbel, battlements, and narrow side lights. Moulded stone mullion-transom windows with leaded panes and hoodmoulds are consistent throughout, together with moulded string courses. The service wing, set back on the right (west), has two storeys and an attic, and incorporates a tall clock tower. A walled service yard fronts the service wing, with an arched entrance and a coal-house on a higher ground level to the west.

The east garden front features a 1:3:1 bay arrangement, with the end bays projecting as squat towers; the right-hand tower has a two-storey canted bay window, while the left has a shallow bay window on the ground floor. The rear elevation (south) includes a recessed centre, a wing on the left with an octagonal corner turret, a small embattled garden pavilion at the end of the wall on the left, and a small 20th-century extension on the right.

The interior remains largely unaltered from the 19th century. A large, galleried hall is a dominant feature, along with a panelled ceiling with pendants and an elaborate Jacobethan chimneypiece in an inglenook. A classical portal is located at the foot of the stairs, alongside secondary stairs and various other features such as good chimneypieces, panelling, cornices, doors, and joinery.