Hatfield Place

TL 7811-7911, 12/64

HATFIELD PEVEREL, LONDON ROAD (south side), Hatfield Place

II*

Large house. 1791-5, by John Johnson for Colonel John Tyrell. Gault brick in Flemish bond, with dressings of limestone and Coade stone, roofed with slate. Double pile plan facing N, with 2 internal stacks at each side. Service wing to right, connected by cellar storey. Connecting block c.1905 by George Sherrin for Colonel Arkwright. Single-storey ballroom extension to left, mid-C19, and mid-C19 porch to front. 2 storeys, attics and cellars. 3-window range of sashes of 12 lights with gauged brick heads, the ground-floor windows recessed in rusticated stone arches with Coade keystones of Flora and Pomona. The ground floor is clad with rusticated stone, supporting 4 pairs of Coade pilasters with defective foliate capitals, Coade frieze with paterae, and parapet with turned balustrade. Double 3-panel doors with plain fanlight in mid-C19 stone and brick porch with rusticated quoins and enriched parapet. The side walls rise above parapet level to form a mansard roof. A small extension to the right of the main elevation has one sash of 12 lights on the ground floor, 2 sashes of 3 + 6 lights on the first floor with plaster aprons, and a half-glazed door with side lights, stone pilasters and frieze. On the S (garden) elevation, cast iron canopy in 5 bays, verandah and steps incorporating the initials WMT, for William Michael Tufnell, who purchased the property in 1847 and died in 1905.

The INTERIOR retains most of the original Johnson decor; the ballroom and front extension are decorated in similar style. Oval staircase hall, doorways at both ends with semi-elliptical arches. Moulded tread ends, wreathed handrail, elegant wrought iron scrolled and foliate balusters with honeysuckle terminals of non-ferrous metal. Groined passage to rear with plaster figures and medallion in low relief. Drawing room (originally described as 'dining parlour') with marble chimney-piece and medallion of Orpheus. Smaller drawing room with 3 medallions. Original plaster friezes of sphinxes, lyres and scrollwork, with egg-and-dark, bayleaf and honeysuckle borders. 'Domical brick vault' below staircase hall, described as such in original accounts. This is the best documented of Johnson's Essex houses; the building accounts are in Essex Record Office (D/DKe F4). It was executed by John Johnson junior, Joseph Andrews and William Horsfall to a design by John Johnson senior, having close similarities inside and out to his earlier Holcombe House (now called St. Mary's Abbey), Mill-Hill, London NW7 (Nancy Briggs, unpublished lecture to the Georgian Group, 1983, and Woolverstone Hall, Some Reflections on the Domestic Architecture of John Johnson, 1732-1814, Proc. Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, XXXIV, 1977, 59-64).

Listing NGR: TL7852411443