Aqualate Hall

Aqualate Hall is a country house designed by William Douglas Caröe and built between 1927 and 1930. It incorporates parts of a John Nash house of 1808, which itself was a remodelling of a house dating from around 1600.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of red brick with a hand-made red clay tile roof.

Layout

The main house is roughly square in plan, with service buildings extending from the rear (south and east sides) and a long service wing running eastward.

Main House Exterior

The principal north front faces Aqualate Mere and features two projecting canted bays topped with concrete-balustraded parapets, which Caröe reinstated in 1930. These alternate with two flat gabled sections designed to harmonise with the lower servants' wing to the east. Set against the centre of the north front is a stone post topped with one of the carved heads (crude in execution, more Celtic than Classical in style) that originally stood on the piers of the forecourt of the 17th-century house. Stone shields are set in the wall above.

The entrance front, as remodelled by Caröe, faces east onto the forecourt bounded by the separately listed Grade II stables. A two-storey polygonal porch from the 1930s with concrete balustrades stands at the south-east corner of the house, linking it with the service range that runs east to the stables. The doorway has a Red Hollington stone archway with armorial shields, and the main double door dates from the 1930s.

The west side of the house is flat and plainer—this is where Caröe truncated Nash's western extension. The principal feature here is a canted bay to the rear, again with balustraded parapet, from which rises a tall arrow-shaped brick chimney stack, one of six similar stacks serving the house.

The south front, which overlooks the rear lawn, has a central canted bay from the 1930s with concrete balustrades. The windows throughout the main house are 1930s rectangular pattern leaded lights set into steel-framed casements and hoppers. The roof dates from the 1930s.

Service Ranges

Extending south from the rear (south-east) corner of the house is a complex, roughly L-shaped brick service range, largely 18th and 19th century but remodelled by Caröe. The section adjoining the main house and facing west onto the rear garden has three end-on gables (above the Hall and Dining Room; a modern glazed lean-to is not of special interest). Beyond this to the south are the older, 18th-century hip-roofed kitchens and sculleries. This range also has imitation Tudor chimney stacks, though smaller than those on the main house.

This range connects with another long service wing running east from behind the south-east entrance to the house, along the south side of the entrance courtyard to meet the stables range to the east. This wing has ornamental gables echoing those on the house and a band of 18th-century red sandstone ashlar blocks along the base of its north side. There are also red sandstone cills, keystones and curious isolated 'stones' (actually cast iron components associated with the 19th-century fireproof floor system within) set between the window openings. Two of the openings retain 18th-century mullion and transom oak windows, while the remainder on this elevation are Nash-period double-hung eight-pane sashes. A range is shown in this position on the 1686 engraving of the house in Plot's Staffordshire, and its present form, with clearly different periods of brickwork, represents successive reworkings by Nash and Caröe.

Interior Arrangement

The ground floor is arranged so that the principal western reception rooms have floor levels half a storey higher than the remainder, allowing for cellars beneath and improved views across the gardens.

The main Entrance Hall (at the lower level) is a large, L-shaped panelled reception room (mainly 1930s work), divided in two by a stone-columned arcade and featuring a grand fireplace. The main stairs to the upper level reception rooms and the first floor rise from its far end. South of the Hall is the Dining Room.

The reception rooms comprise: the Wainscot Room (to the south-east), panelled as its name suggests, with an alcove in the east wall facing a mid-18th-century fireplace opposite; north of this the Snooker Room (or Library) which has a later 18th-century fireplace; at the north-west corner the main Drawing Room with a late 18th-century ceiling, a probably introduced early 19th-century fireplace and 1930s panelling; and south of this a broad passage with turret rooms off. The other ground floor rooms in the main house are the Estate Office (with access to cellars) and Strong Room, which occupy the north-east corner.

The upstairs bedrooms are on two levels, those to the west reached by an additional flight of steps, reflecting the different floor levels provided for rooms at ground floor level. All the bedrooms appear to have been refitted in the Caröe rebuilding of 1927–30, although some incorporate older fireplaces and joinery.

The service range running east from the house has a ground floor (the Long Room, used as a dining room) with a brick-vaulted fireproof ceiling incorporating upside-down cast iron T-beams, which may well be part of Nash's work. Beyond are the Dog Kitchen and the Dog Sitting Room. The upstairs was not inspected but the architect reports simple cell-like bedrooms.

Other Features

A decorative low, pierced brick wall defines the lawns to the north and west sides of the Hall and the entrance forecourt to the east of the house. This is part of Caröe's work of 1927–30. Centrally within the forecourt is a mid-19th-century circular fountain basin with a decorative, two-tier central fountain. This was moved here from elsewhere, probably around 1930 when this (rather than the south) became the entrance front.

Historical Development

There has been a house on this site since 1547 when Thomas Skyrmsher bought the manor of Aqualate and built Aqualate Hall on a low hill above a natural lake, Aqualate Mere. This house was rebuilt around 1600 as a rather plain and not-quite-symmetrical three-storey brick house with a principal north front featuring mullion and transom windows, a row of low gables to the roof and two-storey canted bays with balustrades either side of the front door. A forecourt had tall, rusticated piers topped with large carved heads.

By 1770, two flanking wings had been added to that building and sash windows installed. This formed the core of the house that John Nash reconstructed and extended to the west in a pseudo-gothic style with a grand central gallery in 1808 for a new owner, Sir John Fenton Boughey (died 1823). This rebuilding was financed by a large inheritance from his grandmother's cousin. The existing landscape park was much improved at the same time.

Much of Nash's house (watercolour proposals for which survive at Aqualate), notably the large western extension, was burnt down in 1910. The present Aqualate Hall, designed by William Douglas Caröe, was created for Mrs Ethel Morris between 1927 (when she inherited) and 1930. It incorporates the core of the 17th-century house and elements of Nash's remodelling (the relationship between the houses is only partially clarified by comparing successive large-scale Ordnance Survey maps), although the remaining parts of Nash's work were stripped of stucco and reduced by one storey.

Significance

Aqualate Hall is listed at Grade II* as a competent adaptation of an older country house by William Douglas Caröe which created a pleasing and compact historicist house. Its interiors are of particular quality, having seen little if any change since 1930 while incorporating elements of its 17th-century and later predecessors. The building forms part of the core of a fine collection of estate buildings, alongside Grade II listed stables, which together provide an exceptional example of such a complex. It stands at the centre of a landscape park.