Abington Hall, British Welding Research Association

Abington Hall, British Welding Research Association

Country house built 1711–13 for Maximilian Western, under the direction of Richard Humberstone, using a team of craftsmen which included the Cambridge mason Robert Grumbold. The exterior was much altered in the late 18th century and was first painted around 1815 for Lord Chatham.

The building is constructed of red brick, tuck pointed with gauged-brick dressings and limestone details. The exterior is painted except for the south facade. It has slated roofs with concealed chimneys, and rises to three storeys with a service basement.

The north facade comprises nine bays. The central five bays are slightly recessed and flanked by giant pilastered quoins at the end bays. A continuous moulded cornice runs across with a plain parapet above. The main entrance features a recessed 20th-century glazed door and fanlight set within a round arch, accessed by stone steps up to a portico. The portico is raised on four Roman-Doric columns with entablature. A fixed-light window, shaped to a double-recessed round arch, sits above. Recessed hung sash windows are set in flat gauged-brick arches, with fifteen, twelve and nine panes respectively.

The garden facade faces south and has five pedimented central bays, slightly advanced. The ground-floor windows and central entrance here have been replaced with garden casements. An open verandah of wooden trellis design runs across this front, with standards of three slender grouped shafts repeated over eleven bays, bowed inward towards the centre bays and topped with a concave roof.

Interior

The three south-facing rooms form part of the original house plan. A north-facing D-planned lobby, two storeys high, contains Doric columns carrying the first-floor passage. A central east-west corridor provides access to the east, west and south rooms, with an open string staircase to the north-west. Ceilings to the lobby and staircase feature enriched moulding enclosing oval panels, and enriched cornices line the main rooms and corridor. The two south rooms have late 19th-century Jacobean revival ceilings.

The central room features an Ionic columned recess to the west and a chimney piece with swags, urns and figures in Adam style. It retains imported 17th-century oak panelling. The south-west room has a recessed buffet with panelled doors to cupboards. The north-west room has Corinthian columns at its south end and a chimney piece with foliated consoles, swags and figured surrounds. The north-east room, now with 20th-century partitions, retains an early 19th-century marble chimney piece with fluted pilasters. Ground-floor windows throughout have panelled shutters, and six-panelled doors with applied mouldings feature door architraves moulded with frieze and cornices enriched with urns, swags and festoons. The south-west room has an inserted ceiling.

The upper floors have been altered for student accommodation, and a concrete staircase has been built to the north-east.

History and Setting

The grounds were laid out by Humphry Repton around 1800. The late 18th and early 19th-century details are similar to those at Abington Lodge, also formerly the home of Mr Mortlock. The estate was owned by the Earls of Oxford until 1610. Mr Mortlock purchased the estate in 1779. The last Mortlock owner was transported for firing on his uncle, the vicar of Little Abington, whom he believed had cheated him out of part of his inheritance. The house was let to the Earl of Chatham amongst others in the early 19th century.