Sweeney Hall

SJ 22 NE OSWESTRY RURAL C.P. A 483 (east side)

5/150 Sweeney Hall -

GV II

Country house, now hotel. 1805 (datestone to right return) incorporating parts of a late C18 building; extended c.1860 with later additions and alterations. Main building ashlar with earlier red brick service range and outbuildings to rear; low-pitched hipped slate roof with stone ridge stacks hidden behind moulded eaves parapet. 2 storeys; continuous floor band with giant Tuscan pilasters to corners and flanking central porch; 5 x 3 bays, sash windows, those on first floor to front and right return without glazing bars, tall 15-paned sashes to ground floor (dummy windows on each floor to centre and right bays of left return and to centre on right return); canted entrance porch (probably slightly later) has glazing bar sashes to either side of 6-panel door with flanking pilasters; rectangular overlight has C19 stained glass armorial shield with legend "Dread Shame". L-shaped service range to rear (altered in late C19 but with glazing bar sashes and gauged heads) has single-storey yellow-brick corridor extension on south linking main house with Jacobean-style east wing of c.1860: also yellow brick with mullioned windows and prominent red brick ridge and end stacks with shafts of star section. Interior: open-well stone staircase with latticed cast-iron balustrade lit by oval cupola (now with fibreglass glazing); fine plaster frieze to ceiling of left ground- floor room (former library) and further friezes to former drawing room and dining room on right side of house; wooden vaulting in corridor linking main house with east wing said to be based on that in corridors of the House of Commons. The house is set in a fine parkland landscape. B.O.E., p. 300.

Listing NGR: SJ2932026545