Balls Park

Balls Park is a country house, subsequently used as a teachers' training college and now serving as a university administration building. The house was built circa 1638–42, attributed to architect Peter Mills, with alterations in the early 18th century and early 19th century. A north-west wing was added in 1924–25 by Sir Robert Lorimer.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed in red brick laid in English bond, with a stone north porch. The roof is hipped and covered with coursed heavy Welsh slates, featuring broad eaves with moulded fascia boards supported on carved console brackets.

Plan

The house follows a square courtyard plan, originally with an open central courtyard that was roofed over in the early 19th century to form a central vestibule and hall. Each principal front has seven bays.

Exterior

The house has a basement, two main storeys and attics. All principal fronts feature brick quoins at the corners, a moulded band at first-floor level, and a projecting plinth below the ground-floor window sills.

North Front

The first floor has seven windows. The sash windows in bays one, three, five and seven are 15:9:6-pane sashes, recessed in moulded brick architrave surrounds incorporating rubbed flat arches, with Portland stone sills. The sash windows in bays two and six have semicircular heads with brick pilasters topped by stone caps, moulded arches and carved stone keyblocks.

The ground floor has six sash windows of 15 panes. Those in bays one, three, five and seven have similar architrave surrounds to the first floor, while those in bays two and six have short brick pilasters with stone caps and eared architraves above, with carved stone keyblocks. All windows have segmental relieving arches above.

The porch in the central bay has flanking brick pilasters with carved stone caps that project slightly forward. These are of the Composite order with festoons and a leopard head on the first floor, and Ionic with drops on the ground floor. The first-floor window consists of French casements with glazing bars in a moulded sandstone surround, with eared architraves featuring scroll bases, a carved keyblock and panelled spandrels. A first-floor balcony has a moulded wood cornice and panelled soffit carried on carved brackets, with a wrought-iron scrollwork balcony front.

The ground floor has a central doorway with a seven-panel door: the upper two panels are glazed, the central four are raised and fielded, and there is a large lower flush panel. The doorway has a semicircular head with a plain stone architrave, impost blocks, and a moulded arch with a carved panel above the centre. Stone waisted Tuscan pilasters stand to left and right, with a fascia above and moulding below a frieze that corresponds to the level of the tops of the slightly higher flanking Ionic pilasters. The doorway is approached by five stone steps with sweeping curtail treads and iron handrails. Within the plinth on bays one, three, five and seven are semicircular-headed openings to the basement with panelled surrounds of rusticated brickwork.

The roof features 19th-century pedimented four-light casement dormers, three on each original face of the roof, with low pediments above the eaves in the centre of the north, east and south fronts. Red brick chimneys with clustered shafts, projecting bands and tall tapered orange clay pots complete the roofline.

East Front

The east front has two orders of brick pilasters with stone bases and caps at left and right: Composite on the first floor, and Tuscan Doric with taller recessed pilasters with brick caps above on the ground floor, flanked by rusticated brickwork on both floors.

The first floor has seven bays with six recessed 15-pane sash windows with segmental relieving arches above. The centre bay projects slightly forward, with projecting plain eared architrave surrounds on both floors. The first floor has French windows in a surround with brick pilasters with stone caps and a moulded semicircular arch with a moulded keyblock. The ground floor has a recessed 15-pane sash window, slightly off-centre, with a low central pediment above the eaves. The ground-floor sash to the right of the centre bay has been adapted as a garden entrance with twin-leaf dwarf doors below.

South Front

The south front is generally similar to the east front but without the pilaster orders. It has six sash windows in architrave surrounds on the first and ground floors. The first-floor centre bay has recessed French windows with a pilaster surround between two taller pilasters with stone Composite order caps. The ground floor has a projecting late 18th-century porch with a recessed window with dwarf doors and a stone architrave surround, with two stone Ionic columns supporting an entablature with a blocking course above, on which is set scrollwork wrought-iron railing. A low central pediment sits above the eaves.

West Front

The west front is similar to the east front but has a large semicircular-headed window in the right-hand bay on the first floor, with a semicircular-headed sash, three-pane sidelights and a five-pane circumferential light. The two left-hand bays are covered by the north-west wing constructed in 1924–25, which follows the general style and details of the original house. This wing has a five-bay garden front, a narrow two-bay west end, and a north front with a central hip-roofed staircase turret.

Interior

Much of the interior was reworked in the early 18th century with panelling and rich plasterwork. Some of this hints at a style akin to the mid-17th century or Restoration period, but is more likely to be of the later date when the sons of the original owner, Sir John Harrison, are known to have embellished the house. The central vestibule was converted from the inner courtyard into a large top-lit saloon by Lord John Townshend between circa 1805–1827. Only in the attics and some subsidiary rooms are there traces of work contemporary with the construction of the house in 1638–42.

The plan has likewise been altered. The entrance, with the principal Dining Room to the left, provides a vestige of the medieval plan. In the early 20th century Sir George Faudel-Phillips created a long gallery running the full length of the east range. His son, Sir Benjamin, added the large north-west wing, containing a new Dining Room and principal staircase, in 1924–25.

Ground Floor

The Entrance Hall has early 18th-century panelling, possibly partly reset as a narrow lobby and study were subdivided in the early 19th century. To the left, the former library (now Admissions Office) has bold early 18th-century bolection-moulded panelling. The chimneypiece is similar but has an early 19th-century red and white marble fire surround. The ceiling has recessed panels with guilloche bands and egg-and-dart edging.

The former Dining Room (later Drawing Room) has three bays with early 18th-century bolection panelling. A large bolection-moulded fielded and raised panel appears on the chimneypiece, which has a fossil limestone surround. The ceiling has recessed panels and coves.

The Stair Hall (Oak Hall) ceiling has a modillion cornice with recessed coffered panels and raised square and oval panels between—a 17th-century design. The oak stair is early 18th century and follows an 'L' plan. It has an open well and open string with carved bracketed treads, urn-on-tapered-column balusters, and a moulded handrail wreathed at the bottom around curtail treads and ramped where flights change direction. The newels are fluted columns, and there is a ramped dado rail carved with egg-and-dart motifs.

The former Oak Drawing Room (now Dean's office) has late 17th-century oak bolection-moulded panelling with a richly carved cornice. The elaborately modelled ceiling has a central roundel with modelled fruit, an outer octagonal surround, and semicircular and square surrounds to panels with modelled scrollwork.

The former Boudoir in the south-east corner beyond the Oak Room has bolection-moulded panelling with a carved oak frieze, simple coved cornice and plain ceiling. The former Morning Room has bolection-moulded panelling, a coffered ceiling, and a fireplace with a shouldered architrave and early 18th-century painted panel showing Balls Park with its formal gardens.

The rear corridor leading to the south entrance has late 17th-century panelled walls and a barrel-vaulted ceiling.

The Vestibule Hall was created in the central courtyard by Lord John Townshend circa 1805–27. It has a black and white checkerboard marble floor with a geometrical border of green and red marble. Elaborately carved neo-Jacobean oak panelling installed circa 1905 conceals 18th-century wall-painted perspectives and plasterwork with alcoves. The elaborate Jacobean chimneypiece with Tudor arched stone surround, coupled columns, carved frieze and cornice, and carved panels ornamented with coupled columns, carved upper frieze and cornice, was brought in from Toftrees on the Raynham estate in Norfolk. The elaborate canted ceiling has neo-Jacobean moulded plaster strapwork with an oak lantern light in the centre.

First Floor

The first floor has a three-room enfilade on the east side, subdivided in 1946 from the Long Gallery, itself created circa 1901 by Sir George Faudel-Phillips from an earlier subdivision.

The south-east room (Faudel-Phillips Room) has elaborate 18th-century raised and fielded panelling with Corinthian pilasters with carved-panel bases, and a cornice with modillions and egg-and-dart ornament. The central room of the suite (Harrison Room) is generally similar but has no pilasters. The fireplace has 18th-century panelling and a carved oak mantelpiece of early 20th-century neo-Jacobean design. The Harrison Room in the north-east corner completes the suite.

The three-bay room on the north front was formerly a Drawing Room. Its walls are subdivided by Corinthian pilasters raised on plinths, with the frieze omitted and a low dado with fielded and raised panels. The 19th-century white marble chimneypiece has bolection moulding. The elaborate heavy moulded beamed and coffered ceiling has a large central cornice with an egg-and-dart band, foliated modillions and rich mouldings.

A small ante-room adjoining has bolection-moulded raised and fielded panelling with a pink, grey and white marble fireplace with an architrave surround and minor overmantel. The coved cornice and low 17th-century ceiling have a cornice with cyma moulding, a coved acanthus band, and an egg-and-dart band. A large central oval wreath of bay leaves is surrounded by naive masks in scroll panels in the centre of each side of the room.

The former north-west bedroom has a bolection-panelled dado and a frieze divided by consoles. The panelled coffered ceiling has interlaced circles and cyma-moulded surrounds with flowers in relief in the corners, and naive putti heads around a central oval. The early 19th-century white marble fireplace has a reeded surround with paterae.

The former south-west bedroom has softwood shutters, windows and window seat—18th-century originals in contrast to early 20th-century teak replacements found elsewhere. Late 17th-century oak panelling features a carved acanthus frieze and carved cornice. The chimneypiece has a 19th-century white marble minor surround and an elaborate early 18th-century wood outer surround with carved architrave panels with swags and drops of fruit, an egg-and-dart band below the shelf, and a large upper panel with inner shouldered architraves and outer eared and shouldered architraves. These flank fluted Ionic pilasters, with a central recessed carved panel of fruit immediately below the cornice. The upper walls and ceiling have mid- to late 17th-century plasterwork divided into panels with raised moulded octagons, roundels and ovals. Deeper recessed central ceiling panels have a coved surround interrupted by naive masks and putti heads, with a raised oval wreath of bay leaves in the centre.

A small ante-room adjoining has exposed timber framing in the wall and ceiling, and an 18th-century sash window with some crown glass.

Within the south corridor are fragments of a simple coved and panelled ceiling circa 1640 with modelled motifs from the Harrison crest, including a fist grasping an arrow and putti heads.

The Balcony Room in the centre of the south range has an 18th-century alabaster fireplace with a carved central panel of cherubs at play.

The former south bedroom has a low dado with raised and fielded bolection panelling and a bolection-moulded fireplace. The elaborate late 17th-century moulded and coffered ceiling has a central roundel with a modelled shell, fruit wreath and double guilloche bands, and egg-and-dart surrounds to plain recessed panels. The cornice has modillions and bead moulding.

Attics

The attics originally housed the servants and have now been converted and subdivided as offices and seminar rooms. The roof construction of late medieval principal rafters and butt purlins is visible throughout. Fittings include two-panel doors with quadrants, traces of egg-and-dart and bead cornices, and some panelling. The east corridor has a door with a chamfered and stopped frame. Service stairs are largely 19th century with slender newels and stick balusters; it appears that there may have been an access stair in each corner.

Roof

The roof is of late medieval construction with pegged joints and ceiling at collar level reinforced by longitudinal beams and by later struts. The centre of the roof has a lead-flat 'crown' top invisible from below.

Basement

The basement was constructed to house the original kitchens and has a series of brick vaults, partly replaced in concrete and engineering brick to create space for the boiler after 1946.

North-West Wing

The north-west wing was rebuilt by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1924–25 to replace the late 18th- to early 19th-century kitchen wing.

The ante-room contains a purple marble fireplace with shouldered architraves and a panel above with bracket surrounds and an arched head. It has bolection-moulded panelled dado and walls. The coved ceiling features motifs symbolising the various family connections of the house: an elephant (East Indies Company—Harrisons); scallop shells (Townshends); a squirrel and peacock (Faudel-Phillipses); and rams' heads (their connection with the wool trade).

The Board Room (former Dining Room) adjoining has oak panelled walls with bolection mouldings. The green marble fireplace has shouldered architraves and a Corinthian pilaster surround with a central overmantel panel and swags of fruit and armorial bearings on cartouches. The ceiling is generally similar to the ante-room.

The staircase is of open-well type with newels, close string, column-on-vase balusters, moulded handrail and newel caps. Bedroom fireplaces have bolection surrounds.

History

Balls Park was probably named after Simon de Balle, Burgess of the Borough of Hertford, who attended the 1295 Parliament at York. After the Dissolution in 1535, the property passed to the Crown. The house was used as a children's home during the Second World War and was bought in 1946 by Hertfordshire County Council for use as a teachers' training college. The administration of Balls Park passed to the Hatfield Polytechnic, which reconstituted as the University of Hertfordshire in 1993.