Knuston Hall Including Attached Outbuildings

Country house and outbuildings, now a residential College of Adult Education.

Date and Development

The hall dates from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, with alterations from the 18th to 20th centuries. The 18th-century work was commissioned by Benjamin Kidney, and the post-1865 additions and alterations by Sir Richard Arkwright.

Materials

The building is constructed of coursed stone rubble with stone dressings and some ashlar in the earlier parts. The section added after 1865 is of ashlar. The roofs are slate behind low parapets, with various stone stacks. Plain tiling appears on some outbuildings.

Plan and Structure

The house stands two and three storeys high on an extensive plan comprising mainly two large adjoining blocks. The left-hand block, containing the main entrance, dates from after 1865. The right-hand block is probably mid-17th century—evidenced by surviving banded stonework and an early 18th-century double sash with thick glazing bars set in a wide 17th-century proportioned window in a first-floor corridor. This square block was substantially altered in the late 18th century and again in the mid-19th century.

To the rear stands another wing, probably also mid-17th century, likewise altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. Extending to the left (north) is an extensive series of 18th and 19th-century outbuildings, arranged partly around a large yard.

Exterior

The entrance block is in Jacobean style, with a large shaped gable, stone mullion and transom windows, and a projecting entrance porch. The block to the right has paired windows with 19th-century stone frames to both west and south elevations, and two large 19th-century canted stone bays to the west. The uniform pale stone of the west front is probably an 18th-century refacing, as it differs from the ironstone banded lower two storeys of the south and east fronts.

The lower two-storey rear wing has multi-paned sashes and a two-storey canted bay. Although the core of this wing is probably 17th century, the front is again uniformly pale stone and was probably added in the 18th century, as the stonework overlaps the plinth of the main block where the two meet. Projecting further east is another two-storey brick range which then becomes a garden wall.

Extending from the north front is the extensive series of outbuildings, now partly subsidiary college accommodation. The two-storey range nearest the house has an 18th-century four-bay front with a two-bay central projection under a pediment containing a reset datestone of 1666 (possibly the date of the 17th-century parts of the house). Adjoining to the north, and of less significance, are a former scullery and laundry (a single-storey building, much altered) and a former stable block, which is roofless.

From this range extend further ranges on three sides of a large yard. To the east stands a large two-storey, three-bay former coachhouse with a stone front and pediment containing a blind roundel, and three arched entrances. On each side of the coachhouse are single-storey ranges in stone with openings dressed in red brick. To the far north are 18th-century brick ranges formerly used as livestock houses and pens. To the south are stone buildings used in the early 19th century as an aviary and dovecote.

Interior

The square block to the right has elaborate late 18th-century plasterwork ceilings in the main ground-floor rooms and roundels with Classical heads in relief in the present bar. The former dining room has 17th-century panelling brought in probably in the 19th century. 18th-century plaster ceiling also survives in the first-floor lobby, which would originally have been the ceiling of the small staircase hall. The present dining room in the rear wing, which was the kitchen in the early 19th century (and probably long before), has a large open fireplace. The circa 1865 range has a Neo-Georgian cornice in the entrance hall and a staircase with ramped handrail and turned balusters.

History

In the early 16th century, Knuston was owned by the Brudenell family, but the estate was sold to the Page family in 1542. The Hearth Tax records of 1670 suggest the house was already substantial, as it had eight hearths, and the datestone 1666 reset in an outbuilding range may mark a major rebuilding—probably the present square main block and the rear wing for services. It had been thought that this rear wing (the current dining room) was the only surviving element of this house, then known as Hill House.

Following the Enclosures Act in 1769, the grounds were laid out as parkland, and around 1775 Benjamin Kidney, a London merchant and High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, spent approximately £10,000 on the house. In 1791 Knuston Hall was sold to Joseph Gulston, but in the following half-century the house was let or leased. In 1865 the estate was bought by Robert Arkwright, great-grandson of Sir Richard Arkwright, the renowned textile entrepreneur. Robert made considerable additions to the house and alterations to the existing structure. After Robert's death in 1888, the house was occupied by caretakers or tenants until it was sold in 1920. Northamptonshire County Council bought the Hall in 1949, and it continues in use as a residential College of Adult Education.

A survey drawing made by the well-known architect JB Papworth, probably circa 1811 for Thomas Lane (who seems to have been the then tenant), gives a very good idea of the hall at that time, showing both the configuration and use of the rooms. It is almost certainly a drawing made on the spot whilst the architect toured the house and outbuildings, and may have been preliminary to possible alterations.

This drawing and the evidence of the surviving structure have permitted a suggested sequence for the building history of the house. It has not been possible to be precise about any changes Papworth may himself have made because of the major works carried out later by the Arkwrights, but the present state of the square block—which was the main house in the plan—is probably the result of works in the 1860s. Nevertheless, this block still retains rich plasterwork almost certainly of the 1770s in the long room (formerly the entrance hall and the drawing room), in the panelled room (formerly the dining room), and in the room which is now the bar. This would appear to be part of the costly work carried out by Benjamin Kidney. The large block added by Arkwright is fashionably Jacobean, but the interior of the new entrance and staircase hall has a Neo-Georgian cornice echoing the 18th-century work in the adjacent square block, matching that in the long corridor.

The works carried out in the square block for Arkwright appear to have consisted of opening up this new corridor through the house on the ground and first floors, which involved burrowing through a huge stack shown in the survey drawing and replacing the small staircase with a lobby on each floor. The bedrooms were also subdivided, a process which has continued more recently with the creation of en-suite bathrooms. The cornice in these corridors and lobbies is the same as in the new entrance hall, but original 18th-century plasterwork survives in the first-floor lobby, on a scale too large to have been designed to be viewed close to as is now possible, but completely appropriate when seen looking up from the ground floor below, as originally intended.

Part of the 19th-century work involved the removal of the wall between the original entrance hall and drawing room and the making good of the wall mouldings, as well as the removal of the drawing room fireplace. In the present panelled room, formerly the dining room, the panelling was probably brought in at this time as it dates from the 17th century and was clearly not made for the room. However, the fireplace is mid-18th century, possibly with some alterations, and may be part of the 1770s work. The ceiling is mainly 18th-century plasterwork, but the lowest coved cornice moulding in each of the compartments could be late 17th century, and it is possible that there were some mid-19th-century additions as well.

In the present bar, which was a lobby in the early 19th century, there are 18th-century plaster roundels with relief profiles of Classical heads. This room was altered in the mid-19th century when part became the beginning of the corridor and a further roundel was added to the decoration in a different style. Some further swags were probably also added.