Beeston Hall

Beeston Hall is a house dating from 1784 to 1787, likely designed by Sir William Wilkins the Elder. It is constructed with brick faced with knapped coursed flint, featuring ashlar dressings, and has a slate roof. The building is two storeys high with attics.

The north front is organised in a bay system of 2:3:2, with the centre projecting. A string course runs at first floor level. The design incorporates Gothic detailing. A central gabled and glazed porch was added in 1870, flanked to the right and left by ogeed windows. Above, a central arched window is flanked by ogee niches. The lateral bays contain arched windows on both floors, beneath an ashlar eaves cornice. All windows are sash windows with glazing bars, each with a hood mould. The gabled roof has three stacks of six clustered flues, with octagonal pinnacles extending into crocketed finials at the corners. The west gable has three four-centred sash windows on each floor, two of which are blind. A string course continues, and a four-light four-centred attic casement is positioned above. The gable is crenellated.

The south facade is seven bays wide, with two storeys. The ground floor windows are sashes set beneath four-centred arches, while the first-floor windows are square-headed sashes, all with glazing bars. A string course, eaves cornice, and crenellated parapet run along the facade. The east gable is partially obscured by an early 19th-century kitchen range. A single three-light attic casement and some blocked first-floor windows remain, along with a crenellated parapet.

The interior’s Gothic elements are primarily confined to the entrance hall and scattered details in the north rooms. The south rooms are in a Georgian style, with the four-centred ground-floor windows appearing square from the interior. The hall features a four-centred plastered ceiling with thin arches meeting along a centre line, along with a four-centred roll-moulded fireplace. Four-centred doorways, with hoods on labels, lead to the staircase hall, study, and ante-room. Double doors are enriched with trefoiled arches, with a Georgian panelled door on the rear of the ante-room. The ante-room is oval with flattened lateral walls and four semi-circular headed cupboard niches. Panelled doors, in heavy surrounds, which were reused from the earlier hall (demolished in 1785), provide access to the Drawing and Dining rooms. The Drawing Room has large framed wall panelling and a leaf scroll cornice, while the Dining Room has dado panelling and a modillion cornice. The open staircase has a wreathed and ramped handrail on diamond section balusters with scrolled tread ends. The balustrade returns at the first floor to form a gallery.