Delaney'S Hotel And Restaurant, Middle Court And West Wing, Stardens

Delaney's Hotel and Restaurant, Middle Court and West Wing, Stardens

Former country house, now hotel and two houses, built in the late 18th century and altered and greatly enlarged in 1872–73 by R.F. Onslow. The building retains the fabric of an earlier farmhouse.

The structure is constructed in 18th-century Flemish-bond brickwork with ashlar dressings added during the 1872–73 enlargement, using squared and snecked stone with slate roof. It adopts a large, irregular H-plan, standing 2½ to 3 storeys high, with a 4-window entrance front and 8-window left return, with 2 rooms deep in the centre.

The entrance front features a gable and tower with a 2-bay set-back arrangement. On the left stands a buttress with a 3-light mullion and transom window showing reticulated tracery, and a boarded door with elaborate hinges reached by 3 stone steps, with leaf stops to the hood mould. Above are two small arched openings flanking a coat of arms. A set-back buttress to the right contains two 3-light mullion and transom windows with trefoil heads to the lights and ashlar to the arch, with a buttress at the gable. The first floor displays a moulded string to the gable and tower, with 3-light mullion and transom windows with trefoil heads. Two-light similar windows appear to the right, set back beneath gabled dormers with a trefoil ventilator in the centre, moulded stone kneelers and fleur-de-lys apex to stone copings. The gable right return is similar. Above is a cinquefoiled circular window in the left gable; otherwise dormer treatment prevails, with paired transomed lancets. Ashlar forms a single relieving arch in the tower, with a moulded string featuring heraldic animals at the corners below a crenellated ashlar parapet.

The left return presents a 2-window gable, 4-window recess and gable arrangement. On the right is a late 20th-century flush door reached by 3 steps, with a square single-storey bay containing a 5-light mullion and transom window showing reticulated tracery to a flat head, moulded string and heraldic animals at corners, with a parapet featuring minute crenellations. The form sets forward for a gable with a central buttress carrying an oriel above: 2-light windows similar to the front-left flank either side. Set back is a single lancet, then a change to brick. A central boarded door with decorative hinges and 3-section fanlight sits beneath a pointed arch, flanked by 3-light mullion and transom windows with square heads and ashlar relieving arches. The left gable is plain with a buttress on the right. The first floor moulded string extends to the right stone section only, with two 2-light windows as on the entrance front. A canted oriel sits on the gable with moulded stone corbel and roof, crenellations to the eaves, and transom and reticulated tracery to single lights. The left is set back with a single lancet. In the brick section are three 3-light mullion and transom windows with trefoil heads and ashlar relieving arches; above, at the same level as the front and below eaves, are three 3-light mullions under low arches. A triangular oriel in the left gable matches the canted oriel treatment on the right.

The roof features a parapet gable to the right and 2 gabled dormers with 2-light casements and decorative bargeboards with timber finials. Small circular windows with quatrefoil pattern appear on each side of the gable, with a larger example showing 3 spherical triangles in the centre. A stone base to a chimney on the ridge sits to the left, with a triangular dormer and stone parapet gable. The brick section has an M-roof with 3 triangular dormers and a further chimney base on the ridge to the left. A parapet gable over the oriel contains a 6-foiled circular window with fleur-de-lys to the apex and a decorative stone chimney on the left return.

Internally, the entrance hall contains a stone fireplace with hipped top and foliate capitals. A room to the right has a timber arch, marble columns and crenellated top. A boarded panelled ceiling and panelled door lead to the room on the right, with a sliding panelled division between the rooms on the left. A decorative stone fireplace appears in the room above the entrance hall.

All openings feature alternate red and white voussoirs. Single-storey wings on the right of the entrance and at the left end of the main garden front are not of special interest.

The property was subdivided in the mid 20th century. The hotel underwent some internal alterations following a fire in the early 1980s.