Adcote And Adjoining Forecourt Walls

Adcote and adjoining forecourt walls form a Grade I country house built between 1876 and 1881 (dated 1879) and designed by Richard Norman Shaw for Mrs Rebecca Darby. The building is constructed in red sandstone ashlar with some timber framing to the north and has plain tile roofs.

The house is planned irregularly with a great hall and staircase positioned behind the entrance range, designed in a free Elizabethan style. The architectural composition is dominated by a dramatic series of tall brick chimney stacks with paired shafts and oversailing caps, rising prominently above gabled parapets with chamfered coping and gabled kneelers.

The west entrance front presents two storeys with attics beneath a regularly arranged trio of gables. The fenestration includes very small 2-light blind windows with chamfered reveals in the gable apices, positioned above paired 3-light windows with chamfered surrounds, mullions and dripstones. The first floor has paired 3-light mullioned and transomed windows on the right, whilst the left side features two canted oriels with 2:6:2 lights and moulded parapets rising from the string course, decorated with carved foliate ornament, separated by paired cross windows. The ground floor contains a large 5-light mullioned and transomed window to the right, paired 2-light windows off-centre and a small cross window to the left. A moulded Tudor-arched doorway off-centre to the left leads to the entrance, with paired panelled doors, carved spandrels, a square surround, hoodmould and paired 2-light overlights. The hall range set back to the right features a huge full-height square bay with an 8-light mullioned and transomed window (with king mullion and 2 lights to the right-hand return), moulded cornice and battlemented parapet with hipped roof behind.

The adjoining forecourt walls are constructed in red sandstone ashlar with chamfered coping. Two gateways, one to the front and one to the left-hand side, each have square piers and pairs of wrought-iron gates. Garden gateways adjoin the house at each end of the wall, each featuring a Tudor archway and wrought-iron gate with a datestone above inscribed "18 RD 79".

The south front displays the gable end of the hall range to the left with chamfered plinth, stepped string course and three tall buttresses with chamfered offsets. Tall 2-light mullioned and transomed windows flank the central buttress with blind panels below and continuous stepped hoodmould. Paired 2-light attic windows sit in the gable with cill moulding and a pair of small ground-floor windows each with 2 ogee-headed lights. A shallow-gabled range set back to the right contains a 3-light attic window, paired first-floor cross windows and a large ground-floor 7-light mullioned and transomed window with dripstone.

The east front features a brick end stack to the left with tall paired shafts, and a projecting lateral stack to the front off-centre to the right with chamfered offsets and three brick shafts, the centre one square. A 3-storey canted bay to the left has string courses, dripmouls, battlemented parapet and mullioned and transomed windows of 2:2:2 lights. Two large gabled dormers to the right contain mullioned windows, with four further mullioned and transomed windows serving the ground and first floors. An arcaded garden loggia in the angle to the left comprises 2 plus 2 bays with panelled parapet. An extensive service range extends to the north. Windows throughout feature leaded lights, those serving the hall bay displaying a lattice pattern.

The fine interior includes an entrance hall with steps leading to a vast 4-bay full-height hall supported by large moulded transverse stone arches springing from moulded stone corbels and supporting a crown post roof construction. A stone fireplace features short colonnettes with foliate capitals and a tall tapered hood. A passage at the north end has a wooden screen with gallery over, incorporating embossed leather panels and a continuous bench with balustrade. A jettied timber-framed wall in the gable to the north contains leaded wooden attic casements. A tall moulded arch opens to the bay at the south end. A plain dog-leg staircase rises from the screens passage and returns on the axis of the hall. The panelled dining room contains a fitted dresser and a large stone inglenook with a moulded arch springing from foliate capitals, with a smaller fireplace set inside and de Morgan tiles in the reveals. Further rooms throughout retain complete fixtures and fittings, including a library, drawing room and billiard room. First-floor rooms were not inspected during the survey.

The house stands within a landscaped park and is recognised as Shaw's maturest work of the 1870s.