Henley Hall And Attached Walls, Balustrades And Steps To South

Henley Hall and Attached Walls, Balustrades and Steps to South

This is a country house of mid-18th-century date that was remodelled around 1772, with extensions added around 1875 and 1907. The building is constructed of brick with brick parapeted slate roofs. The chimneys are either brick projecting gable-end stacks or integral ridge stacks, all plain but with oversailing caps featuring a single spurred shaft to the south.

The house developed from a linear plan, with the original 18th-century block extended at each end in 1772 and further extended at one end with major additions in 1875 and 1907.

The exterior is generally three storeys. The north front facade of the original range has a mid-18th-century central slightly advanced four-storey single-window bay with 12/12 sashes and an upper 2-mullion and transom window capped with a pediment. This is flanked by three-storey, three-window wings with 9/9 sashes and upper 3-mullion and transom windows. Flanking wings added around 1772 comprise a three-storey, three-window range to the left and a four-window range to the right, with 9/9 sashes to the first floor, 12/9 sashes to the ground floor, and large 4-mullion and transom upper windows. The left range has a central ground-floor sash that has been brick-blocked, and the right range has a projecting brick porch covering one sash bay. The sashes have moulded cases and no sills. All windows are topped with gauged brick lintels.

A central lead-roofed porch features a pair of Tuscan columns supporting a Doric entablature with an open pediment. The doorcase has plain pilasters and 2/2 sash side lights with eared architrave. A pair of 8-panelled doors with a fanlight featuring radial glazing bars provides the main entrance. The top storey of all flanking wings has been remodelled with stone-coped parapets featuring four low gable pediments. Brick string courses run at first and second floors. Lead rainwater hoppers are dated 1772.

The right return has extensive projecting three-storey wings of 1875 and 1907 that adjoin and cover the original range. The left return end is masked by a two-storey brick flat-roofed extension wing. This extension has five 6/6 sashes to the north, with the two outer ones in recessed bays and a blank lower floor. The east front has four 12/12 sashes with 16/16 sashes below, the right-hand sash in a recessed bay over a pedimented doorcase. The south elevation has two 4/4 sashes to the first floor and 2/2 sashes to the ground floor. An additional ground-floor 16/16 sash incorporates a glazed sundial roundel.

To the rear, the south elevation has a central slightly advanced bay with a portico mirroring that on the north front but with a glazed pair of doors. Mullioned 19th-century 2/2 sashes with side lights and stone surrounds occupy both storeys. To the right is a six-window range with 4/4 sashes to the first floor and 1/1 nineteenth-century sashes or tall casements to the ground floor, with 2-mullion and transom casements to the second floor and a central change of level. To the left, the bay is covered by a circa-1875 three-storey canted projecting bay with mullion and transom windows in each face. To the left is the original range continuation, a two-window range with 4/4 sashes at first floor, mullion and transom windows to the ground floor, and a single-mullion and transom window to the second floor. Throughout this side, flat gauged-brick lintels and stone sills are used. This elevation of the range has a brick battlemented parapet. The left side of the range is masked by a circa-1907 projecting two-storey flat-roofed extension with additional early-20th-century extension wings beyond.

The interior includes a painted panelled drawing room incorporating seventeenth-century oak panelling and a mid-nineteenth-century decorative feature of Royal portrait medallions and Jacobean-style strapwork plastered ceiling. An eighteenth-century staircase with slim balusters (three per open tread) is also present.

The walls, balustrades and steps to the south are principal subsidiary features. An early-twentieth-century balustraded terrace extends across the south front of the house, with steps descending to the west side to early-nineteenth-century walls and gateways enclosing a square formal rose garden, with a sundial at its centre. The terrace wall and steps have ashlar arcaded balustrading in panels spaced by piers with ball-head finials, set on brick retaining walls. The rose garden walls are brick with ashlar coping and concave coping steps, and brick gatepiers surmounted by ball-head finials.