Walton Hall Including Game Larder

Walton Hall, including game larder

Country house built 1858-62, designed by the renowned architect Sir George Gilbert Scott for Sir Charles Mordaunt, 10th Baronet. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with flush dressings of different types and slate roofs featuring ashlar ridges and end stacks. It represents a substantial example of Gothic Revival architecture.

The building is arranged on an L-plan, with a main range and a quadrangular service range attached to the north-east angle tower. The main front comprises three storeys, presented as a ten-window range with a full-height three-window projection to the right end and a five-stage angle tower to the left adjoining projecting two-storey service ranges that wrap around a courtyard. A six-window front range includes a three-storey pavilion to the right end.

The exterior displays string courses and top modillioned cornices with arcaded parapets throughout. The entrance features a porch with a cusped round arch carried on polished granite shafts with foliate capitals, topped with a cornice and parapet; paired faceted-panelled doors provide access. Ground and first-floor windows incorporate leaf-trail decoration to their moulded openings. Two tall pointed cross-mullioned stair windows with rosettes to their tympana flank the entrance to the left, alongside a similar straight-headed stair window at the left end. Remaining windows have moulded cross-casements; the ground-floor right includes three windows with a central canted bay window featuring a parapet. The first floor displays three segmental-pointed two-light windows above the entrance and three matching those to the ground floor at the right end; the second floor contains simpler windows with a two-light stair window at the left end.

The five-stage tower presents cross-casement windows, segmental-headed to the second stage and paired two-light windows with tympana to the top stage. It is topped with a corbelled parapet and pavilion roof with wrought-iron cresting. The right return incorporates a conservatory with shouldered lintels to cross-casements and some inserted doors, covered by a domical roof. The left return, positioned behind the service range, features a two-storey wing with a canted end.

The garden front shows a five-window range with a gabled forward break to the left, a cross-wing to the right end, and a three-window range set back to the left end. A seven-bay loggia features columns with foliate capitals supporting cusped segmental arches, with foliate corbels to the arcaded balustrade. Most windows retain original cross-casements, though some twentieth-century doors have been inserted to the ground floor, which has windows with shouldered lintels and a canted bay to the cross-wing; the first floor displays windows with leaf-trail decoration to openings and shafts.

Adjacent to the entrance front stands a two-storey, four-window service range with single and two-light windows. A three-storey pavilion features two straight-headed windows with paired trefoil-headed lights to the first floor, cross-casement windows to the second floor, and a ground-floor projection with a three-light transomed window with shouldered lintels to the return, topped by a parapet and pyramidal roof with pierced iron panels to the lantern.

The north range contains an entrance with a gabled flat porch and single-chamfered cross-mullioned windows, some of three lights. The east range displays a low gable to the left end and a gable to the right end; a segmental-pointed courtyard gateway with hood and flanking offset buttresses; a projecting first-floor stack to the right gable; single-chamfered mullioned and cross-mullioned windows, with one twentieth-century triangular roof dormer; and a clock-turret.

The courtyard encompasses a single-storey south range with mostly single-chamfered mullioned windows featuring decorative iron glazing bars and twentieth-century dormers, plus two re-entrant stair projections. A free-standing square structure to the centre, formerly functioning as meat and game larders, displays a hipped graduated slate roof with triangular dormers. Its south side features paired entrances with shouldered lintels reached by steps, cross-mullioned windows to each return, and rear steps to a basement entrance.

Interior spaces contain exceptional Gothic Revival detailing. The entrance hall features a three-bay cusped round-arched arcade on coloured marble columns with arms to the capitals on two sides; the stair hall features an upper arcade with segmental-pointed arches. A gallery with an arcade of segmental arches and a trefoil-arcaded balustrade extends to one side. The floor incorporates inlaid flower motifs beneath a coffered timber ceiling. A large, richly carved fireplace displays red columns and corbels carved with figures of a fisher and hunter, with a brass and iron grate and two brass lamps to the cornice. The entrance retains paired half-glazed doors with tracery; other doors feature enriched cornices. The stair hall shares similar detailing, with an open-well cantilevered stair displaying a string decorated with Tudor flowers and enriched iron balusters; a three-bay landing gallery overlooks the hall.

Decorative fittings remain throughout. Each hall contains a brass chandelier and armorial stained glass. Other rooms retain enriched cornices and stone or marble fireplaces. The dining room features a fireplace comparable to the hall, adorned with figures of Summer and Winter. The ballroom comprises three rooms opened into one during the twentieth century, containing two marble fireplaces and large paired doors to each end. Two rooms at one end, formerly library and billiard room, feature early nineteenth-century marble fireplaces with Classical details; the billiard room retains a stained-glass armorial panel.