Woodhall Park (Heath Mount School)

Woodhall Park is a neo-classical country house built between 1777 and 1782 by Thomas Leverton for Sir Thomas Rumbold. It was later altered and extended in 1794 for P. Benfield and now serves as Heath Mount School. The building is constructed of yellow stock brick with stone dressings and features shallow hipped slate roofs.

The principal elevation faces the garden and displays a sophisticated neo-classical composition. The central section consists of a 2:3:2 arrangement with a 2-storey block and attic, connected by 3-bay link blocks to pavilion pavilions at each end (originally 1 storey, later raised to 2 storeys). The centrepiece is dominated by a Giant Ionic engaged tetrastyle portico with a rusticated ashlar ground floor containing 3 round-headed openings. Above this are steps leading to central French windows, flanked by tall single glazing bar sashes with dummy balustrades beneath the sills. An anthemion and acanthus impost band, string course, and acanthus-necked Ionic columns support a pulvinated frieze with a blank central panel and modillioned pediment. The first floor displays single glazing bar sashes with dentilled cornices and dummy balustrades, while the attic contains 3:3 light architraved sashes. The outer bays of the main block are set back slightly and feature ground floor 6:9 pane glazing bar sashes with panelled jambs, acanthus consoles, and rosettes, surmounted by dentilled pediments. Axial and cross-axial stacks with moulded cappings flank the central bays.

The cellar level continues similar fenestration with some dummy windows and matching string courses and plat bands. The right link block features a slightly projecting central bay with a round-headed sash and dummy balustrade, flanked by blind niches topped with finely gauged bricks and stucco panels of arms. A later upper storey contains 3:3 pane sashes with flanking stucco panels and a plain parapet. The end pavilions project with slight rebates at the angles and are distinguished by large tripartite sashes within architraves featuring quarter pilasters and dentilled cornices. Stone archivolts to relieving arches with radiating shell motifs crown these openings, which are flanked by blind niches and festooned stucco panels with stuccoed ovals in the spandrels.

The left link block originally served as a screen to the service yard and now has inserted tripartite French windows with a segmental head. A 1-storey quadrant addition occupies the angle between this link and the main block. The pavilion returns are 2 storeys, with ground floor glazing bar sashes beneath gauged brick flat arches and plat bands to the first floor.

The rear elevation, now the principal entrance, has a 2:3:2 arrangement on the main block with a slightly projecting centre containing a mid-19th-century octastyle Ionic portico on the ground floor with paired columns. The central entrance features a 2/3 glazed door with fanlight, architrave, and flanking sashes with floating segmental pediments. Extensions to the link blocks and pavilions, dating to 1794, project 2 bays to the rear, largely with dummy windows in the inner returns.

The interior contains exceptional decorative schemes. The entrance opens into a near-cubic saloon with Etruscan decoration possibly by P.M. Borgnis, featuring a chimneypiece with inlay, painted medallions and arabesques, and a radiating shell in a shallow domed ceiling. The central great staircase is cantilevered in a single flight swept around an open well along three walls to the first-floor gallery, with bracket-moulded soffits, wrought iron balustrade, and moulded ramped and wreathed handrail. Plaster decoration à l'antique includes paintings of the four seasons and four continents, with aedicular doorcases and radiating fans with coffered vaults toplit by a large domical lantern. The original entrance hall is a double cube with blind arcading, pedimented doorcases, and a plaster ceiling. All three central rooms have white stone paving with slate dots.

A print room created in 1782 by R. Parker occupies one of the link blocks and is distinguished by blind arches flanking the chimneypiece, a coved ceiling, and walls entirely covered with engraved paper reproductions of paintings with frames, ribbons, chains, busts, and candelabra. A small octagonal space in the same link features traceried fanlights. The billiard room retains an 18th-century chimneypiece and pierglass alongside a 19th-century classical plasterwork ceiling. A tightly wound subsidiary stair encircles an open well with an oval top light. The first-floor study displays a plaster ceiling and chimneypiece with inlay and sienna marble. A 1794 Gothick chamber in the link block features plasterwork with a shallow domed ceiling, segmental vaults, and a 4-centred arched chimneypiece, all decorated with cusped interlacing tracery.

The grounds were landscaped by W. Malcolm, Royal Nurseryman, around 1780.