Hewell Grange

Hewell Grange

A former country house, now an open prison, built between 1884 and 1891 for Lord and Lady Windsor, later the Earl and Countess of Plymouth. It was designed by Thomas Garner of the architectural partnership Bodley and Garner.

The house is constructed of Runcorn sandstone from Cheshire with a slate roof. It follows an H-plan layout with three principal storeys, attic floors and a basement. The north-west facing entrance elevation has a central porch wing, while the principal rooms face south-east and overlook the gardens. A large service range extends to the west and north-west.

The exterior is executed in Jacobean and Elizabethan style. Long elevations to the principal fronts are punctuated by tall shaped gables, chimneys and a central lantern of two stages with a domed roof visible from both sides. Windows throughout are mullioned and transomed, with moulded string courses defining the floors.

The entrance elevation is near-symmetrical with a central projecting porch of two storeys. The porch features an elaborate parapet containing a statue in a central niche, over a semi-circular oriel window above an arched porte-cochere. Paired Corinthian pilasters rise through the ground and first floor levels. Tall mullioned and transomed windows flank the entrance, with projecting wings at each end displaying shaped gables and carved finials. Tall chimneys punctuate the roofscape, with dormer windows lighting the attic level. A modern fire escape occupies the centre of the east elevation, which features a central shaped gable with a canted oriel window at third floor level, flanked by pairs of square bays at ground and first floor with ornate parapets.

The garden elevation facing south-east is symmetrical across nine bays. At the centre is a loggia of three arches at ground floor level in a projecting bay rising to a shaped gable with Corinthian pilasters at first and second floors, crowned by obelisk finials. Central windows at each level are flanked by niches or further pilasters. Between each floor are bands of ornately carved stonework and moulded courses. This central bay is flanked by two tall towers rising above the main roofline and culminating in pyramidal roofs. Each tower is square on plan with four-light windows on each floor, positioned in the re-entrant angles between the main elevation and projecting end bays. These end bays themselves feature bay windows rising through ground and first floor with semi-circular projections and ornate carved parapets.

The large rectangular service range to the west is of two storeys, partly enclosing the forecourt at the entrance. It matches the house style with less decoration but retains carved finials to gables and a Tudor carriage arch flanked by buttresses. Two courtyards lie within, one open and one covered.

The interior is entered through a large octagonal vestibule in Neo-classical style with cloakrooms either side now converted for prison use. A short flight of stairs leads to the Great Hall, which runs the full length of the principal building and rises through two storeys. The hall is decorated in Italian Renaissance style with Italian fireplaces and doorcases based on sketches made by Lord and Lady Windsor in Mantua. Arcaded screens in alabaster and marble occupy each end, the south-west example based on Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel in Florence. The arcading continues around the bedroom corridor at upper level with bands of ornate plasterwork above and below, supporting a timber panelled ceiling on massive beams. Timber galleries on the north side provide private access to the chapel at the centre.

A garden vestibule with a ceiling painted by Bavarian artists Behr and Virsching gives access to the formal garden beyond. The garden lobby is hung with canvases painted by scene painters from the Vienna Burgtheater to resemble tapestries in the Schönbrunn, with an 18th-century bronze statue of Hermes at the centre. This space accesses the former library and Lord Windsor's study, the latter featuring timber panelling and an ornate wooden overmantel beneath a Jacobethan plaster ceiling. The adjacent former private dining room has further panelling, an 18th-century fireplace brought from the old house, and 17th-century style plasterwork ceiling and overmantel.

At the north-east end of the hall are the former billiard room and drawing room. In the south-west wing, Lady Windsor's sitting room has a ceiling painted by Behr and Virsching, copied from the Hall of Labyrinth at the Ducal Palace in Mantua, with highly ornate detailing to the window bay, fireplace and doors. The former state dining room beyond features ornate ceiling plasterwork, fireplace and a minstrel's gallery with timber arcaded screen. The main stair adjacent is of open-well plan with Jacobean detailing to balustrades and panelled walls.

At first floor level, the chapel over the entrance has a floor laid with lapis lazuli and white marble by Farmer and Brindley, and a barrel vaulted ceiling of carved cedar by Detmar Blow and Fernand Billerey, completed in 1914. Stained glass windows include a design by Arild Rosencrantz in the eastern oriel window and restored 15th-century panels apparently brought from Bordesley Abbey. Former bedrooms and dressing rooms on this level are now used as dormitories, with original doors, doorcases and fireplaces generally surviving. Lady Windsor's dressing room in the south-west wing displays murals painted by her mother Walburga, Lady Paget, illustrating Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, with a portion of the score painted underneath by Virsching.

The second floor contains further bedrooms now used as dormitories, former nursery rooms and a school room with a ceiling supported on large timber trusses with decorative ironwork. The third floor has a range of former bedrooms on the south side, with the northern side comprising storage areas supported on thick timbers with exposed brick walls. The service range interior retains many original doors, skirtings, cupboards, plain cornices and stairs, with the layout appearing mostly intact.