Hinton Hall

Hinton Hall is a country house built in 1859 to designs by Samuel Pountney Smith of Shrewsbury, commissioned by Robert Peel Ethelston. It is constructed in red brick with blue-brick diaper work to the gables and red sandstone ashlar dressings, with plain tile roofs.

The building is planned on a square footprint with a service wing extending to the north-east. It displays a neo-Jacobean style across two storeys and an attic over a basement, with the service wing rising to three storeys and an attic. The design features a chamfered plinth, moulded string courses, a coped parapet with corner finials, and coped parapeted gables with string cornices and finials at their apices. Numerous brick chimney stacks rise from the main block, arranged in grouped star-section shafts.

The south-east (garden) front presents a symmetrical composition of 1:1:1 bays with a central break, articulated by three gables. The central gable is flanked by chimney stacks. Windows are predominantly double-chamfered stone cross windows. The attic tier displays 2-light double-chamfered stone mullioned attic windows flanking a central stepped 3-light attic window with triangular pediment to the raised centre light. The first floor features a canted oriel window with moulded base, mullioned and transomed lights, and a cornice to the parapet, with a raised centre carrying a carved monogram. A ground-floor square bay to the left contains a 2-:4-:2-light window with moulded cornice and pierced parapet featuring a circular strapwork motif. The right portion is set back by one bay.

The north-east (entrance) front is dominated by three gables with a central attic cross window and a central first-floor 4-light stone mullioned and transomed window lighting the entrance hall. A two-storey canted porch projects into the angle to the left, detailed with string courses, cornice, and pierced parapet with circular strapwork motif. A first-floor window above the porch features a transom and dripstone. The entrance is defined by a round-arched doorway with a pair of panelled doors, approached by a flight of twelve grey sandstone steps with curved balustrades (partly collapsed at the time of survey in October 1986). The doorway is framed by a rusticated stone architrave with keystone and a stone doorcase with unfluted columns on pedestals supporting an open segmental pediment.

The south-west front displays three gables, the central one containing an integral chimney stack consisting of a pair of star-section shafts divided by diaper brickwork. The elevation is divided into 1:2:1 bays with double-chamfered stone cross windows. The attic storey features 2-light mullioned attic windows, the inner pair with dripstones and the outer pair with triangular pediments. A two-storey canted bay in the second bay from the right contains 1-:3-:1-light mullioned and transomed windows, a moulded cornice, and pierced parapet with circular strapwork motif.

The service range to the north-east comprises three storeys and an attic with two ridge stacks, three gables, and a central second-floor oriel window to the south-east.

The interior is detailed in neo-Jacobean and neo-Baroque styles with carefully wrought fixtures and ornament throughout. The entrance hall features a pair of half-glazed inner doors with strapwork in a semi-circular overlight and moulded architrave with keystone. A chamfered Tudor-arched stone fireplace with panelling above dominates one wall. A balcony at the north-east end carries neo-Jacobean balusters, square newel posts with pierced finials, and chamfered Tudor archways flanking its ends. An ovolo-moulded depressed archway leads to the stair hall at the south-west end. An internal window to the right comprises three four-centred arched openings.

The top-lit full-height staircase hall contains a neo-Jacobean dog-leg staircase with closed string, rectangular-section balusters, moulded handrail, square newel posts with large finials and pendants, and panelled soffit. The balustrade returns to the first-floor corridor. Pairs of round arches open to the mezzanine, first floor, and first-floor corridor, each pair featuring a central Tuscan stone column with panelled soffits and moulded architraves with keys. Central circular openings in the spandrels are detailed with keyed moulded architraves. Top lighting is provided by cross windows with segmental-headed lights. A vaulted wooden ceiling comprises panelled pendentives springing from carved corner brackets and supporting four round arches with keys and panelled soffits, with an octagonal inner vault to the lantern (boarded over at the time of survey in October 1986).

A ground-floor room to the south-west features a plaster frieze and modillion cornice with paterae, egg and dart enrichment, and other ornament. The dining room contains a moulded round-arched recess. Other rooms throughout are fitted with moulded cornices and marble fireplaces. Doors are uniformly detailed with eight raised and fielded panels and moulded architraves. First-floor rooms were not inspected during the survey.

Samuel Pountney Smith (1812–83), the architect, maintained a large local practice and served as mayor of Shrewsbury in 1873. Hinton Hall is particularly notable for its planning, especially its innovative flying staircase arrangement.