Soulton Hall With Attached Balustrade, Garden Walls And Gate Piers

Soulton Hall with Attached Balustrade, Garden Walls and Gate Piers

A manor house, now farmhouse, dated 1668 for Thomas Hill, probably incorporating parts of an earlier building. Minor later alterations and additions have been made.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond, with blue brick diamond patterns to the left and right on the first floor and to the centre at parapet level. Stone angle quoins and a chamfered plinth complete the external finish. The roof is flat with asphalt covering (formerly lead) and is concealed by a coped parapet. The building is square in plan with rectangular corner turrets. It rises three storeys on a chamfered plinth that incorporates a semi-basement to the sides and rear, though this is concealed by an 18th-century balustrade to the front. Moulded stone string courses are punctuated with 18th-century square urn finials at the corners of the parapet.

The principal façade features five-light stone mullioned and transomed windows on each floor flanking a central entrance. The entrance itself is particularly fine, with fluted Roman Doric columns supporting an elaborate composition. The columns have oval-shaped decoration to the echinus and guttae to the moulded architrave. The frieze displays rounded triglyphs and rosettes to the metopes, with a moulded cornice supporting an elaborately shaped pediment displaying an armorial shield with eight quarterings of the Hill family. A 19th-century panelled door with festooned garlands bears the date "1668" in raised lettering on the stone lintel. Lead downpipes cut through the string courses and plinth to left and right, probably original or 18th-century work.

The side and rear elevations feature 1:2:1 window arrangements, with mullioned and transomed windows of three lights to the centre and two-light mullions to the corner turrets. Three two-light mullioned windows light the semi-basement on the left side. The corner turrets have chimney stacks rebuilt in 19th-century red brick, each with three attached and rebated shafts with moulded stone capping and bases probably reused from the original stacks. The rear elevation is plain, with two pairs of five-light mullioned and transomed windows grouped to the centre on each floor.

The front is approached by a plain balustrade, probably of mid-18th-century date, with buttresses and coping. A straight flight of nine steps leads to shaped piers at the top and bottom, decorated with carved garlands and elaborate floral work to the inside face of the moulded ramps. 20th-century owl statues surmounting the piers are not included in the listing. A panel with floral decoration at the right end of the balustrade may not be in its original position.

A rectangular enclosure lies to the front of the balustrade, bounded by red brick walls of mixed bond on a chamfered stone plinth with triangular coping attached to the balustrade. Square gate piers to the front have moulded stone plinths and capping surmounted by ball finials, with brick projections to opposing faces and carved scroll-like stone brackets to the top.

A garden wall attached to the left corner of the enclosure wall is probably also 17th-century in date. It is of red brick without plinth and has plain stone coping, with 20th-century stone buttresses to the front. This wall encloses an area of approximately 30 by 50 metres.

The interior has been considerably altered in the 19th and 20th centuries but retains several features of special interest. The right ground-floor room has two deep-chamfered spine beams with straight-cut stops and an original square-headed stone fireplace with moulded mantel-shelf. Most other rooms contain inserted 18th and 19th-century cast-iron Coalbrookdale fireplaces. Several rooms retain chamfered ceiling beams and 17th or 18th-century panelled doors. The present main staircase is 19th-century, but the back staircase with moulded handrail and pointed finials, which survives from the first floor to the second floor (removed below) on the middle of the left return, is probably original. The room in the left-hand rear turret retains 17th-century rectangular oak panelling. Parts of an earlier, possibly 16th-century, timber-framed house appear to have been incorporated at the rear left corner, evidenced by exposed square panels and close studding with incised decoration in rendered infill to what was presumably originally an exterior wall on the first floor.

A medieval precursor of this house may possibly have stood on a moated house platform approximately 250 metres to the north-east. The owner suggested in March 1986 that the date 1668 on the main entrance may commemorate a marriage rather than the building of the house.