Holystreet Mill

Holystreet Mill

A mansion with a 16th or early 17th-century core, extensively rebuilt in 1913-14. The older walling consists of coursed blocks of granite ashlar; the rebuilding work is brick-faced with granite rubble tending to courses, with granite ashlar quoins and detail. The building has granite stacks with granite ashlar chimney shafts and a slate roof.

Of the original house, only a fragment of exterior walling survives on the south (garden) side. This shows the front passage doorway with what was probably the hall and inner room to the left (west), and what may have been a parlour wing projecting forward. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and the parlour has an end stack. The 1913-14 rebuilding work was so extensive that the rest of the house has been completely rebuilt as a commodious Edwardian residence executed in a Tudor style consistent with the earlier work.

The principal rooms occupy the south wing. Beyond the original hall and rooms described above, there is another parlour to the right (east) of the passage with an outer axial stack. To the right of this is a chapel dedicated to St. Boniface over another room, accessed by an external stair and featuring a projecting front lateral stack. The east wing contains the present main doorway and porch with accommodation to the right, and two rooms with an axial stack between. The end ground floor houses the boilerhouse and projects forward from the north wing. The north wing is double depth with a two-room plan and an axial stack between. A single-storey corridor connects the ends of the north and south wings across the north side, with service rooms on the north and east sides. The building is two storeys with attics.

The main front faces south onto the garden. The central three-window section is nearly symmetrical about the central doorway, an early 17th-century segmental, nearly round-headed arch with moulded surround, carved spandrels and a hoodmould with florettes carved onto the labels. Directly above is a contemporary three-light window with chamfered mullions. The gable above has been rebuilt with shaped kneelers and coping and contains a small rectangular niche, articulated as a porch by flanking buttresses of 1913-14. A relieving arch of the same date springs from the buttresses over the first-floor windows.

The hall window to the left is early 17th-century, tall with four lights and central king mullion and hoodmould. Above is another contemporary three-light mullioned window. The inner face of the parlour wing also has a ground-floor four-light and first-floor three-light window. The labels to the hoodmould here are carved with the initials T and R, but the label carving of the hall window has worn away. All these early 17th-century windows have chamfered granite mullions. To the right of the doorway, windows date from 1913-14: a ground-floor three-light mullion-and-transom window and a first-floor three-light mullioned window, both with granite chamfered mullions. The entrance bay gable is flanked by two-light timber casement dormers with hipped roofs. The gable end of the parlour wing has single-light first-floor windows either side of the stack; ground floor right features a doorway in a Tudor arch with a mullioned overlight. The hall window contains diamond panes of leaded glass; the others throughout the house contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. All gables have shaped kneelers and coping. The eaves round the entire house have slate soffits.

The apex of the chapel gable end is carried forward on corbels to form a hood over an arch-headed niche containing a carved figure of St. Boniface, with a granite apex cross. Ground floor features a four-light mullion-and-transom window and a triple lancet window to the chapel, with the central lancet taller and its head cusped; the hoodmould steps up over this central lancet. The right side contains the external chapel doorway, a two-centred arch, reached by a flight of granite steps enclosed by a granite wall.

The porch at the left end of the east wing has a three-centred outer arch; the doorway behind has a round-headed arch and is flanked by side lights. The porch is gabled. This front overall has a four-window front of one, two and three-light mullioned windows and three dormers containing timber casements with hipped roofs. The north front has a two-window front with tall ground-floor five-light mullion-and-transom windows and first-floor four-light mullioned windows and a single dormer. A doorway in the rear of the east wing is a Tudor arch with a mullioned overlight. The west side has an irregular disposition of timber ovolo-moulded mullion windows; the gables here are slate hung. All doors round the house date from 1913-14, heavily studded moulded plank doors with large hand-tooled wrought iron strap hinges.

The interior is well-preserved. The former hall and parlour fireplaces may be 17th-century, both plain granite ashlar. The hall has a late 17th-century overmantel of ornamental plasterwork featuring a heraldic achievement, though this is probably not in situ. The rest of the interior structure and detail is wholly 1913-14 in date.

The most impressive part is the stair hall, with a flag floor containing a monumental oak open-well staircase. It has large square newel posts with large vase-like finials and moulded pendants, closed string, heavily moulded balusters and moulded handrail. A large open fireplace has a soffit-moulded segmental head. Large round-headed granite arches lead off to the rooms and corridor. The first-floor landing is like a 17th-century gallery; the other walls are oak-framed with a continuous range of internal borrowed-light windows around. The roof here is exposed and late medieval in style with arch-braced trusses with king posts and queen struts. The rooms have exposed timber crossbeams, large open granite fireplaces and round-headed granite doorways with studded plank doors. The roof dates from 1913-14 throughout.

Holystreet Mill is a most attractive Tudor-style house set in an exceptionally picturesque valley location, with equally attractive listed stables and Coach House nearby.