Hale House, Including Quadrant Passages To Pavilions

Hale House, including quadrant passages to pavilions

A medium-sized country house at Hale Park, built by Thomas Archer when he acquired the estate in 1715, remodelled by Henry Holland Junior in 1770, and altered in the early and late 19th century.

The house is constructed of brick with stone dressings, later stuccoed, with a slate roof. It is two storeys high on a raised basement (now buried on the entrance front), and measures seven bays by five bays. At each end of the entrance front, quadrant passages (now mostly buried except for their balustrades) connect to small two-storey pavilions, each measuring seven bays by two bays.

The entrance front features a central giant three-bay portico with Ionic columns (a drawing from circa 1850 shows Corinthian capitals), wider pilasters on the inside corners, and pilasters on the corners of the façade with plain capitals. On either side of the portico are light wells to the basement, with stumps of former giant stone pilasters on each side of the windows. These pilasters, which started from the floor level of the basement, must be Archer's original work. The present form must therefore be Holland's, though it was altered in the 19th century when the forecourt was raised. The central entrance comprises large double doors with narrow lights either side and a fanlight above. The first floor has seven 18th-century twelve-pane sashes with low cills; the ground floor windows are 19th-century plate glass sashes (to be replaced with glazing bars). A large frieze with heavy cornice and low parapet crowns the front. The roof is hipped around a central well, with stacks on the inner face of the return roofs and in the centre of the rear roof.

The pavilions have projecting central bays three bays wide with a pediment above. On the ground floor are twelve-pane round-headed sashes; the first floor has a string course and six-pane sashes. An entablature with low parapet flanks the pediment on either side, with an oculus in the centre. The roofs are hipped, with stacks in the centre and above the hips. A stone balustrade links the pavilions to the house.

The rear front has the basement fully exposed with a full-height canted bay to the centre three bays, which features pilasters on the corners and at each end. In front of the centre is a staircase that rises as two arms meeting on a platform, with a flight rising from this to the door. A stone doorcase has plain pilasters with console brackets flanking a panel with a large keystone, over which is a modillioned hood carried on brackets. The basement has four-pane windows, the ground floor has 19th-century plate glass sashes, and the first floor has 18th-century twelve-pane sashes. A plain frieze, moulded cornice, and low parapet frame the flat roof of the bay. The sides feature a slightly set-forward centre section of three bays, with a flat-roofed projection at basement level containing oval windows similar to those in the exposed side of the quadrant passage.

Inside, behind the entrance door, is a late 18th-century staircase hall with a stone staircase having wrought-iron balusters of two uprights with openwork between and a mahogany handrail. To one side is a library, to the other a dining room, with a drawing room beyond. These spaces are mainly late 18th century in character, though some rooms retain early 18th-century fireplaces.