Moreton Hall School

Moreton Hall School

A house built in 1773 by the architect Robert Adam for Professor John Symonds, a Cambridge scholar. The building is now used as a school. It is constructed of white brick with a slate roof.

The main Adam block is built as a cube with a parapet and wood cornice. According to Symonds' own diary, the foundation stone was laid on 12 April 1773, a year before Adam's work on the Playhouse in Cornhill. The house was originally called St. Edmund's Hill, later The Mount, and is now Moreton Hall School. Two chimney piece designs for St. Edmund's Hill, entitled "for John Symonds 1776", are held in the Adam collection at the Soane Museum (Volume XXIII, Nos. 73-75).

The exterior comprises three storeys and cellars. Each of the four fronts features a wood dentilled pediment. On the principal fronts, there is a three-window range. The first and second storey windows are double-hung sashes with glazing bars, while those on the ground storey are casements (except on the north front, which has double-hung sashes with glazing bars). An ornamented wood band runs between the storeys.

The north front is notable for its wood pilasters extending through the first and second storeys with ornamented capitals and frieze, supporting the pediment. The central first storey window has a wood architrave and cornice on console brackets. The ground storey features a large projecting central porch with stone Ionic corner columns, frieze and cornice, surmounted by a wood balustrade. The entrance door is six-panelled with side lights, framed by pilasters and frieze, and surmounted by a large segmental fanlight with ornamental fan glazing. The porch is flanked by three-light windows with stone pilasters, frieze and cornice, and a pediment over the central light.

The west front displays a large segmental brick bay with a three-window range running through two storeys and surmounted by a wood balustrade with frieze and pediment above. The south front has an ornamented wood frieze below the pediment and a wood band between the first and second storeys, with a stone band running at first storey sill level. The first storey windows have blind boxes, and the central window has a wood architrave and cornice on enriched console brackets. The ground storey features a central doorway with moulded wood architrave and pediment on enriched console brackets, opening on to a raised terrace and flanked by fine Venetian windows with wood Ionic columns, pilasters and cornice.

A mid-19th century east wing extends from the main block, comprising two storeys with parapet and raised brick bands between storeys. This wing has a five-window range of double-hung sashes with glazing bars (except on the ground storey of the south front, which has four casements). The north front of the wing includes a stone Venetian window at the west end. The roof of the Adam block is tiled with a central chimney-stack and further stacks above the apex of each pediment.

The interior retains two Adam rooms on the ground storey, each with Adam ceilings, doors, ornamental pelmets and furnishings. One of these rooms has a double columned ante-room at each end with a central bay. Other rooms throughout the house contain good Adam features. A 19th-century extension to the house contains a stair and rooms with heavy woodwork in Jacobean style.