Hanworth Park House

Hanworth Park House

A former country house dating from the late 18th or early 19th century with additions and alterations from the mid-19th, late 19th and 20th centuries. The house was built for the fifth Duke of St Albans or Henry Perkins.

The building is constructed of red brick and London stock brick, tuck pointed on the principal front, with stone dressings and cast iron embellishments, beneath a slate roof.

The original part of the house, from the late 18th or early 19th century, is L-shaped. It comprises a principal range containing the entrance hall and reception rooms facing south-east, with a service wing extending north-west from the northern end. A single-storey ballroom wing was added later, also extending north-west from the southern end of the principal range and terminating in a free-standing belvedere tower. This arrangement creates a three-sided courtyard, apparently designed as a service court with a screen across its north-western side. A first floor containing bedrooms was added above the ballroom later in the 19th century. The building has a tall semi-basement and two upper floors.

The principal front faces south-east with eleven symmetrically arranged bays. The basement storey features a series of arched openings with segmental heads, lighting a sunken area. These arches support a cast-iron veranda extending the full length of the front across both upper floors, with paired columns, moulded balusters to the ground floor and trellis panels to the first floor. The lateral pairs of bays and the central three bays project slightly. The centre features a colonnade of four Greek Doric ashlar columns at ground-floor level with an entablature, approached by a flight of stone steps running the width of the colonnade. A pedimental gable surmounts the central three bays with decorative bargeboards and a circular window. Cast iron lampstands flank the staircase. The roof above the veranda has a concave curve. The lateral openings on both floors of the veranda were glazed and boarded at some stage, with parts of this treatment still present.

The south-western flank has three bays of red brick laid in Flemish bond at the far right, forming the end of the principal range, with deep basement windows extending almost to ground level. The central basement window is blind, as are the lateral bays to the upper two floors. The ground floor has a prominent square oriel window supported on pillars with four elaborate cast iron brackets. It continues the pattern of balustrade seen on the south-eastern front verandas and has three arched openings above with delicate tracery to the spandrels. Above is a concave dished roof. The mid-19th-century ballroom wing to the left is slightly recessed with a semi-basement, with verandas before the basement and ground floors. A single bay at right links to the earlier house and has a doorway at ground floor level with half-glazed doors in a moulded surround with bracketed head and guilloche moulding, above which is a plain sash. Three bays to the left include a central canted bay window flanked by French windows. At first-floor level are four pairs of arched lights with detached columns forming the central mullions. Chimney stacks have panelled sides and moulded tops. The detached belvedere tower has a single bay to each of its four stages with a projecting aedicular surround supported on brackets to the first floor, above which is a clock face. The former conservatory wing, which projected to the south-west just in front of the tower, has had its brick basement storey retained; this now supports a 20th-century extension to the nursing home with a flat roof.

The north-eastern front serves the service wing. Five bays at left are largely masked by a late 19th-century two-storey polygonal addition, apparently built as an estate office. This is joined to the house by a corridor range which has a fire escape against its north-western side. Slightly recessed and at right are a further four widely-spaced bays, the last of which is a quadrant bow terminating the wing.

The open courtyard on the north-western side shows random fenestration and additions to the rear of the principal range. The ground floor and basement of the ballroom wing were masked by protective sheeting at the time of survey in March 2019, indicating demolition of additions associated with the building's use as a care home. The service wing has six bays, of which the basement windows have been enlarged to hold metal-framed 20th-century casements. The ground- and first-floor windows at the left end have been blocked, except for a ground-floor window adapted to form a doorway. The belvedere tower has an arched door to its base and a projecting first-floor window surround. Brick piers to either side show where a screen completed the enclosure.

The interior has suffered water ingress, vandalism and dilapidation, causing the collapse of some ceilings and floors, particularly in the rooms at the eastern end of the principal range, where floors and ceilings from the top of the house to the basement have all fallen. The spinal corridors to the rear of each floor remain intact. The central entrance hall has a floor of 19th-century encaustic tiles and a cornice possibly of 19th-century date. To the rear is an open-well staircase with stone treads and a mahogany handrail ending with a wreathed curtail. The south-western side wall of the entrance hall opens through two later 19th-century round arches to a former reception room remodelled in the 19th century to extend the entrance hall. Three further round arches open from its rear wall onto the spinal corridor running along this wing. The ceiling has collapsed. The reception room in the southern corner has lost the plaster on its walls and ceiling, but some moulded cornice remains. The ballroom retains its rich ceiling decoration with Rococo ornament and deep cornice. This was propped at the time of survey in March 2019. The principal staircase ascends through the house to an octagonal lantern above the first floor. The service wing staircase has an open string, stick balusters and a column newel. Fire surrounds, where retained, are plain, often with replaced grates.

The basement storey has been altered to accommodate changing usage. The floor level in rooms along the principal front appears to have been raised; original paviours can be seen below the low brick walls supporting the raised level. The central cellar below the entrance hall has a groin vault of brick leading to a further cellar below the flight of steps approaching the entrance.