Marske Hall

Marske Hall is a country house, now converted into flats. Built in the late 16th or early 17th century, it was significantly remodelled and extended around 1735, with further alterations made subsequently. The house was built for the Hutton family and is constructed of rubble with ashlar dressings and stone slate roofs.

The building has an irregular plan, with the main L-shaped house comprising three storeys and a basement, measuring 2 by 5 bays, and a two-storey rear wing. The main front elevation features an ashlar plinth and flush quoins to the right. In front of the central bay stands an external staircase with stone balusters. The central panel projects slightly and is rusticated, containing a niche with a Vitruvian scroll on the string. The central bay itself is of rusticated ashlar with ground-floor part-glazed leaved doors in an architrave with a tripartite keystone within a doorcase of unfluted Ionic engaged columns with entablature and broken pediment. Above, a first-floor Ionic Venetian window features a central tripartite keystone, and a second-floor sash window sits in an architrave. Sash windows throughout are set in ashlar architraves, smaller on the second floor, with tripartite keystones on the ground and first floors. A modillion cornice runs along the front, with an ashlar parapet featuring panelled intervals marking the bays and half balusters over the central bay. The roof is hipped to the right, with ashlar stacks rising from behind the first range of the main roof.

The wing to the left projects forward and is likely a 18th-century addition. It has an ashlar plinth, chamfered rusticated ashlar quoins, and windows, cornice and parapet matching the main front, with a hipped roof. At the rear, basement windows are visible, and a large external stepped fireplace rises from the present basement to the left. To its right stands a Tuscan Venetian window at the opposite end of an axial portrait gallery from that at the front.

The left return of the left wing comprises three storeys over two bays. A 20th-century terrace runs along this elevation. Sash windows sit in ashlar architraves, with the ground-floor window of the first bay partly converted into a door. A plainer cornice is present.

The left return of the main house is three storeys and basement over four bays, plus an inserted bay linking to the rear range. A part-glazed door in a chamfered ashlar surround leads to back stairs. Sash windows are set in ashlar architraves, with half-size lights to the basement and three-quarter size to the second floor.

The right return is three storeys over three bays. Large mullion-and-transom windows are partially visible. Central part-glazed leaved doors sit in a probably early 19th-century plainer ashlar surround with Tuscan pilasters below the cornice and blocking above. Above this is a round-arched staircase window with Tuscan pilasters to the side jambs and a tripartite keystone to the head. Other windows, cornice and parapet match the front elevation.

The rear wing probably originated as an early ancillary building. It is two storeys with four first-floor windows. Between the first and second of these windows sits a leaved part-glazed door in an ashlar architrave with a tripartite keystone. The windows have ashlar architraves, with 32-pane sashes on the ground floor (one to the left of the door and two to the right, with a blocked doorway further right) and tall 15-pane sashes on the first floor. A cornice runs along with a shaped kneeler to the left. The roof is hipped to the left, with corniced ashlar stacks, two between the first and second first-floor windows and one at the right end. The rear elevation of this wing shows, on the ground floor from left to right: two sash windows with glazing bars in plain ashlar surrounds, a six-panel door in an ashlar architrave, and two 20th-century garage openings. The first floor has five 15-pane sash windows in ashlar architraves.

Interior of the main house: The ground floor was not fully inspected, but the room to the left of the door features an egg-and-dart motif on panelled window shutters and a good chimney-piece with a coat of arms.

The stairhall, accessed from the right return, contains an early 18th-century oak staircase of expanding open-well plan with large richly carved balusters featuring barley-sugar twist above gadroon on an upturned bell. The ceiling exhibits fine decorative plasterwork with face masks and ribbon motifs, and a rich cornice of modillions with acanthus leaves interspersed with flowers. Plaster panels on the walls, particularly those nearest the window, have eared architraves. At the top of the stairs, a door of six fielded panels with an eared architrave, pulvinated frieze and pediment provides access to the portrait gallery spanning the house between the Venetian windows. These feature turned balusters below a Vitruvian scroll continued on the dado rail, with fluted Ionic columns. The staircase cornice continues around the picture gallery.

The rooms to the front of the house have fielded panel doors and window shutters, chair rails, fielded panels to walls, and dentil cornices. Two rooms off the picture gallery to the west were bedrooms; both contain a bed recess with hooks in the ceiling for a tester, flanked by two closets. The south room features walnut woodwork with red silk panels, a six-panel door in an architrave with acanthus leaf detail, and a bayleaf-garland to the pulvinated frieze. The overmantel has an eared and shouldered egg-and-dart architrave, pulvinated frieze and broken pediment, with a Vitruvian scroll to the chair rail and dentil cornice, both carried through the closets. The bed recess has a segmental arch supported on square Ionic pilasters. The north room has large bolection panels to the walls and an ogee-section cornice carried round the closets. Two sets of back stairs, running to the second floor, are dogleg in plan with column-on-vase balusters.