Hutton Court

Hutton Court

Former manor house, now hotel and restaurant, dating from the late 15th to 20th centuries. The building is constructed of coursed rubble with freestone dressings, slate and double roman tile roofs with lead detailing. The complex comprises a hall, tower over a former porch, inner rooms, later west and north wings, and a much reworked east wing which closes a courtyard now filled with a 20th-century kitchen.

The south garden front is dominated by a four-storey battlemented tower, now positioned centrally, with the hall extending to its right. The elevation rises to three storeys in places and displays six windows throughout, all glazing bar sashes with upper row gothic tracery under dripmoulds. The tower windows have thicker glazing bars, whilst windows to the east are paired. The hall features two windows flanking a gothic doorway at ground level, and a two-light round-headed window survives on the right at first floor level, though much of the hall is now concealed by a 20th-century conservatory reusing 19th-century cast iron cambered casements and stained glass. The tower is distinguished by a weighty string below the battlements, with single round-headed lights to east and west. At the north-east corner a polygonal stair turret rises above the main tower, and chimneys of the west wing also rise above the battlements.

The west front, now the entrance, represents an early 18th-century reworking of a 17th-century wing, with further 19th-century alterations. It displays two storeys with five windows plus one in the gable of the north wing. A central 19th-century square-headed porch with ornate finials and arms dominates the facade. All windows are set in architraves with keystones, though they have lost their glazing bars and are now two-pane. The front features rusticated pilasters, a moulded cornice, parapet and hipped roof. A coped gable to the left has a 20th-century porch and plain single lights.

The north elevation has been much altered and displays two storeys with six windows. One ground floor and three first floor windows retain four-light ovolo moulded mullions, two of which retain cames and stays. The remaining windows are 19th-century three-light casements except for a 20th-century top-hung casement at the far right. A 20th-century glazed entrance breaks the facade off-centre right.

The east elevation comprises a central block of two storeys with two windows, flanked by the gables of north and south ranges each with one window. The centre has glazing bar sashes but the entrance is a plain chamfered four-centred arch. The south gable has a plain plank door under a relieving arch, with one glazing bar sash above and at attic level a single light with chamfered surround. The north gable is dominated by a 19th-century pitched roof bay.

The interior preserves significant medieval and later features. The hall contains an arch-braced collar beam roof with intermediate trusses resting on lower purlins, the space between which and the wall plate is decorated with tracery panels. A lateral fireplace has a moulded four-centred surround. A blocked two-centred arch leads east to a room with very deep chamfered beams.

The tower contains a very wide newel staircase ascending from ground to first floor, with a laver in a nodding niche at the base of the newel, which has plinth and cap. At first floor two plain chamfered four-centred arch doorways survive, one leading to the west range and the other to a reverse winder climbing the remaining floors. The first floor room retains 17th-century panelling.

In the west range, the left ground floor room has 18th-century panelling with dentilled cornice. The room to the right, of intact gothic character, features a copy moulded framed ceiling with ogee-headed door and frame, panelled dado, and a marble ogee-headed and framed fireplace under a timber mantle. The first floor bedroom is 17th-century panelled with strapwork frieze and dentils above, and contains a 16th-century depressed arch fireplace with hollow and roll moulding, a 17th-century timber surround and a tripartite overmantle with caryatids and atlantides bearing grotesque capitals.

The north range features stop-chamfered beams and two four-centred arch doorways. At first floor a 20th-century staircase and partition divide a 17th-century panelled room with frieze and small fire surround. To the east are a framed truss and, almost at the east gable, a hammer beam truss.