Moor Place

Country house. Built between 1775 and 1779 by Robert Mitchell for James Brebner Gordon. The estate had earlier associations, with a large Elizabethan house built in the late 16th century by the Dalton family on the east side of the present building. A substantial, square, red brick house with stone dressings and a hipped tile roof, it has two storeys with attics over a basement. It is characterized by a stone balustraded parapet around the whole building, with a bracketed cornice below. The east and west fronts have five windows each, with ground and first-floor 6/6 sash windows. The east ground floor windows have stone surrounds, while those on the west front are within shallow recessed arches with stone dressings. The west front serves as the entrance front and features a central, Adam-style door beneath a rectangular fanlight with radiating glazing bars, flanked by narrow side lights with small half pilasters. Above the door, within the arched recess, is the Gordon coat of arms dated 1779. The basement is more prominent on the east garden front, where a central door has a stone surround, rectangular fanlight incorporating an elegant oval motif, and is approached by quadrant steps with vase-patterned wrought iron railings. A large south extension in a Georgian revival style was added in 1909 by Ernest Newton. This extension is constructed of red brick with a green slate roof, featuring a prominent wooden modillion eaves cornice and 6/6 sash windows with folding louvred shutters. Its east elevation has a first-floor, plastered, canted window bay on the south, a central door with a deep, bracketed hood, and a four-bay corner loggia with brick piers and a dentil cornice. A three-bay, open arch loggia is on the south side, and the L-shaped west elevation incorporates ground floor recessed arches imitating those of the main house. A plain, single-storey service wing, designed by R Norman Shaw in 1888, is located on the north side of the house. The interior is of excellent Adam style, featuring a central, flagged staircase hall lit by a dome, with three flights leading to the first-floor landing. This landing has Ionic column screens in segmental arches on the east and north sides, and blank pilaster screens on the other walls. The staircase has wrought iron, vase-patterned balustrading with anthemion and swag motifs. Rich cornicing, door surrounds, and marble fireplaces are found in all the principal rooms, and the library contains early 19th-century bookcases.