Acton Scott Hall Including Service Court And Railings

ACTON SCOTT HALL INCLUDING SERVICE COURT AND RAILINGS

A house dating to around 1580 with medieval vestiges, incorporating early 19th-century alterations and additions. The building is constructed of brick with ashlar dressings to windows, quoins, and moulded storey bands, with a lower ground storey of stone rubble. Plain-tile roofs with moulded ashlar coped gables and finials crown the structure. Mullion and transom windows throughout feature lattice metal glazing bars, with straight dripmoulds over top-storey windows. Two stepped large projecting chimney stacks stand on each side, one notably wider than the other, with upper spurred shafts of restored moulded brick and oversailing continuous caps—four shafts on the wider stacks and two on the others. The building follows a square plan with three gables on each side, supplemented by a brick extension wing on the west.

The entrance front (north) rises four storeys with a three-window range of three-light mullion and transom windows; the top-storey windows sit wider on the elevation than those below, whilst the lower ground-floor windows lack transoms. The central windows on the lower two storeys are now obscured by a projecting brick entrance lobby extension containing a three-light mullion window at mezzanine level and a front entrance door on the left return.

The garden front (south) displays three storeys with a three-window range. Two-storey canted projecting bay windows with mullion and transom divisions and hipped tiled roofs flank a central three-light mullion and transom window positioned above a two-light mullion and transom window, with two-light mullion and transom windows at top-storey level. Two ornamented lead spouts, hoppers and downpipes enhance this elevation. To the left stands a garden entrance set within a brick extension, featuring an ashlar door surround with a segmental pediment on pilasters, bearing the Acton Arms in the pediment's tympanum.

The west side comprises a four-storey, three-window range of two-light mullion and transom windows, with three-light mullion and transom at top-storey centre. Windows are separated by the two large projecting stacks; a doorway passes through the left stack and the lower left window is brick-blocked. A two-storey brick extension covers the lower two storeys to the right, featuring segmental arched windows.

The east side also rises four storeys with a three-window range of three-light mullion and transom windows. The current arrangement shows a single top-storey window to the right and three windows to the left. A doorway opens through the central bay. Windows are again separated by the two large projecting stacks, with the middle bay projecting forward between them below the top storey. An ashlar segmental arched fireplace surround, set in the right stack, remains from a former two-storey extension wing demolished in the mid to late 20th century.

The interior contains notable plasterwork. The dining room ceiling features pomegranate and rose motifs. The library displays a plaster cornice ornamented with squirrels and grotesque heads, along with some imported panelling from a neighbouring house. A carved mantelpiece in the drawing room bears the inscription "S.A. 1641". A late 18th-century staircase survives.

A greenhouse and stone rubble slate-roofed buildings form a service courtyard abutting the brick extension on the west side.

Subsidiary features include a pair of brick gatepiers with moulded ashlar bases, quoins, and corniced caps surmounted by vases, which frame an iron gate with railings extending 25 metres to a third pier. These elements abut the service buildings and enclose the west side of the garden. A similar gateway with comparable features stands 5 metres east of the churchyard.