Honiley Hall

Honiley Hall is a country house in Elizabethan Revival style, built between 1913 and 1915. It was designed by Charles Edward Bateman, Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1863–1947), for Herbert Louis Wade, Justice of the Peace. The house is built of pinkish-red brick with plain clay tile roofs, and includes associated outbuilding ranges and forecourt walls.

Plan and Layout

The house follows an elongated H-shaped plan, orientated north-south, with its entrance elevation facing west. At the north end, a service range adjoins the house, running north before joining a long east-west range. A shorter range extends southwards from the centre of this east-west block, creating a service court to the north-west of the house.

The Main House

The house is built of brick, with a main central range and two short, gabled cross wings—one at each end—projecting slightly from both long elevations. The north end of the main range terminates in a four-storey castellated tower, which contains a clock installed in the late 20th century as a replacement for an original window opening. The building stands two storeys high with an attic and partial cellars, plus the three-storey tower.

Windows throughout are multi-light, mullioned and transomed, some with hood moulds, all with sloping brick sills. The mullions and transoms are built in hollow-chamfered brick, and the windows themselves are metal-framed with rectangular leading. The cross wings, chimney breasts and tower feature diaper work decoration in contrasting brick. Their gables have raised and moulded verges springing from kneelers, and windows diminish in size towards the gables. The tall, clustered chimney stacks are moulded with corbelled-out tops. Rainwater goods include elaborate cast-iron rainwater heads with relief decoration and the date 1914.

West (Entrance) Elevation

The entrance front features a three-storey central projecting porch bay, narrower than the cross wings, with a similar gabled roof. The entrance is segmental arched, with a four-light overlight and hood mould, leading to a recessed porch. To the left, a double-height window marks the principal staircase. To the right, in the re-entrant angle between the cross wing and main range, stands a double-height square-bay window with a parapet roof.

South Elevation

The south return has a central gable marking the end of the main range, flanked by blank, externally-expressed chimney breasts adjoining double-height projecting square-bay windows with parapet roofs. Between the bay windows, a steeply-sloping pent roof covers a loggia formed from timber uprights. The central doorway houses a multi-paned glazed door.

East (Garden) Elevation

The garden front has a modest central entrance bay with a shallow oriel window above, flanked by three bays on either side. The central bay is a blank, externally-expressed chimney breast separating wide windows with a strong horizontal emphasis. The gabled cross wings have similar fenestration to the entrance elevation.

North Elevation

The northern return has high windows marking the staircase and a small raking dormer with timber casement windows.

Service Ranges

Beyond the tower, the service rooms begin with a single-storey range featuring a high, gabled half-dormer to the kitchen. This short north-south range forms a cross wing to the slightly lower, long east-west range, which runs for four bays to the east of the house before forming the east-west element of the service courts to the west of the house. All service ranges share the same high, moulded coped verges and kneelers as the house.

Immediately west of the cross wing, the range includes a four-bay open loggia with an arcade of semi-circular arches giving access to stores within. To the west of this lies a double garage with a modern up-and-over door. The court is enclosed by the coach house cross wing, which has a high, central gabled carriage opening and a central timber cupola with a pyramidal roof. The inner elevation has a gabled taking-in doorway above external steps; the three wide openings—the flanking ones enlarged in the later 20th century—have recent glazed doors. The external elevation has later low lean-to extensions on either side of the carriage opening. The western end section of the service range completes the outbuildings, at right angles to the coach house; windows in both these elevations are uPVC casements.

Interior

General Features

The house has its brick windows exposed internally, with hollow chamfers. The principal reception rooms have oak floorboards, chair rails and picture rails. Fireplaces on the ground and first floors are several different examples, mainly in stone, with carved decoration including Tudor roses.

Entrance Hall

The main entrance opens into a large reception hall, which is partly galleried. This room, along with the dining room and drawing room, has an elaborate compartmental ceiling divided by moulded beams. The hall features a full-height stone chimneypiece with a shallow four-centred arched opening and a stone cornice with carved detailing.

Main Staircase

The main staircase rises as a dog-leg from the hall. It is built of oak, with a closed string, turned balusters and heavy newels with finials. The balustrade continues around the partially galleried landing above.

Drawing Room

The drawing room has small square oak panelling to picture rail height and a broad stone fireplace with a frieze of Tudor roses and a moulded, four-centred arched opening. Double doors matching the panelling create an opening to the adjoining dining room.

Dining Room

The dining room has a similar fireplace to the drawing room and an elaborate compartmental ceiling divided by moulded beams.

Library

The library has a more baroque fireplace with bolection moulding, and a plaster cornice and ceiling detailing. An alcove is divided from the rest of the room by a wide opening denoting the position of an earlier wall that enclosed the butler's pantry.

Morning Room

The morning room has a deep alcove window seat and a bolection moulded fireplace with scroll motifs.

Large Reception Room (Former Drawing Room)

Adjoining the morning room is a large reception room, formerly the drawing room, with a coffered ceiling featuring a moulded plaster frieze of trailing oak leaves and acorns dividing it into compartments. The room has raised and fielded panelling incorporating a flush-fitting fire surround with yellow and black marble insets.

First Floor

The first-floor corridor landing has rooms off to either side and features a vaulted ceiling with curving top-lights in the compartments, created using similar plasterwork frieze to that in the ground-floor former drawing room. Lincrusta wall covering is installed on the ground-floor corridor and first-floor landing to chair rail level.

First-floor rooms retain their skirtings, chair rails and cornices (some cornices are later 20th-century replacements), and their fireplaces. These are smaller than those on the ground floor but some include similar carved work showing the same degree of variety, including Tudor roses and four-centred arched openings. Others have moulded timber surrounds and Arts and Crafts tile inserts.

Service Areas

The kitchen and former cook's pantry are now incorporated into a single room with modern fittings and fixtures. The service stair has raised and fielded panelling, with plain stick balusters and square-section newel posts. A second-floor apartment remains as staff accommodation, with some four-panelled and some ledged and braced plank doors.

Service Range Interiors

The interiors of the storage rooms in the service ranges are largely unaltered, though the opened-up former cow houses at the western end of the long range are now in use as a gymnasium, and the former visitors' stables are now a double garage.

Forecourt Walls

Brick walls extend westwards from either end of the main elevation. Those to the north partly enclose the service court, with a wide opening marked by brick piers with ball finials. Those to the south are lower, with an opening into the garden marked by similar piers and finials. The walls have half-round brick capping and decorative scalloped tiles projecting from under the coping.