Youlston Park

Youlston Park

Youlston Park is a mansion house of Grade I importance. It comprises detached mediaeval hall and kitchen blocks that were encased during a late 17th-century remodelling when the west wing was added. Extensive further alterations were made in the mid-18th century.

The building is constructed of random coursed ashlar and rubblestone with slate roofs and brick chimney stacks, except for a rubble stone stack at the rear of the hall. The kitchen block is rendered. The house is of 2 storeys and follows a courtyard plan with a 7-bay extension to the west.

The south front features two 2-bay gabled projections with blind lunettes and timber sashes of 6 panes per sash with glazing bars, flanking the encased hall which has 3 dummy windows above 3 sashes with glazing bars. An entrance porch supported on 4 classical stone columns, covered in ivy, is positioned in the western gabled projection. The recessed west wing of ashlar above rubble stone has 7 bays of sashes with glazing bars of 9 panes per sash and flat stone arches, with a gable end to the left and a half-hipped roof to the right.

The east front has a bay of sashes to each side of a lateral stack, followed by a venetian window above a door with a heavy stone lintel and pillars, then 5 bays of sashes with glazing bars of 6 panes per sash. The rear features a domestic wing with an octagonal open bell turret, weathervane, and octagonal clock dial below.

The interiors are of exceptional quality. A ground floor room at the end of the west wing contains a magnificent late 17th-century plaster ceiling of 6 shaped panels around an oval centrepiece with dense foliage in high relief and moulded cornice. Two diagonally opposite corner porches contain shields, while the other two feature herons and eels—all Chichester family emblems. An ornately carved fireplace displays grotesque heads above foliage to each side of the overmantel.

The Chinese room in the west wing features rare Chinese wallpaper dating to around 1760 on all four walls and an ornamental plaster ceiling of draped foliage with pendants around a rectangular panel with cherubs heads in the angles. Four thin outer panels, the side ones containing central shields with heron heads, decorate this ceiling.

The main staircase retains richly carved strings and swags on the newel-posts, though the treads are a 20th-century replacement. The entrance hall displays 17th-century panelling with coats of arms painted in the top panels, an ornately carved fireplace, and a plaster ceiling of curvilinear geometrical pattern.

The coved ceiling of the original open hall to the east is a 20th-century replacement. However, parts of the enriched moulded plaster cornice survive, along with circular niches with festoons at each end and an inserted plastered panel depicting mythological scenes in the north wall. Three-quarter height panelling sweeps up to accommodate a classical fireplace with fluted pilasters and voluted supports to the mantel.

Concealed above the coved ceiling is a fine mediaeval roof consisting of 5 trusses of base crucks with arch-braced collars supporting crown posts. A curved windbrace between each truss is jointed into the soffit of a single set of through purlins.

A room at the east end has a 9 panelled trabeated ceiling with plaster decorations and a doorway with Corinthian capitals.

Youlston Park was formerly the seat of the Chichester family. The interiors are very fine. Rooflights have been introduced in places.

Related heritage assets include the Game Larder at Youlston Park, the Lodges at Youlston Park, and the Stables at Youlston Park.