Cottesbrooke Hall

Cottesbrooke Hall is a country house built circa 1702-13, with the architect unknown but traditionally attributed to Francis Smith of Warwick. Robert Mitchell carried out significant extensions between circa 1770-95. The building is constructed of brick with ashlar dressings, featuring lead and slate roofs.

The main house is a double pile symmetrical structure of two storeys with basement and attic. The south front displays a seven-window range divided 2:3:2 by giant pilasters with Corinthian capitals supporting an entablature with pulvinated frieze and modillion cornice that breaks forward above each pilaster. Above the cornice runs a parapet of alternating plain and balustraded panels with urns positioned above the pilasters. The central doorcase features attached pillars supporting an entablature and scroll pediment decorated with florets and foliage, with a glazed double door set in a finely moulded stone architrave. Tall 15-paned sash windows have moulded stone surrounds. Brick chimney stacks rise symmetrically above the pilasters, and a central lead spirelet with weathervane crowns the shallow pitched roof.

The bowed ends of the north front project to either side of the south elevation. Flanking pavilions are linked by quadrants of seven bays separated by diminutive Ionic pilasters. Each quadrant's central bay contains a shallow stone niche with acanthus leaves springing from the keystone. The pavilions are single storeys with basement and attic. Their south elevations feature central windows with moulded stone architraves and flanking rusticated pilasters supporting pediments carried above eaves level, with hipped roofs and round-headed dormers. The forecourt-facing elevations are similar but include central Tuscan entrances. The north front received additional flanking bays in 1795 by Robert Mitchell, with each pilaster having a separate entablature. A central entrance and steps were added in 1937. The prominent east and west fronts are dominated by large bows added by Mitchell in 1795 to terminate the northward extension, executed in neo-classical style.

The entrance hall occupies the centre of the north front and features a moulded cornice with an early Rococo ceiling of 1750. To the left of the entrance is the dining room, containing moulded wood doorcases and a fireplace with freestanding columns of veined brown jasper, together with an Adam style ceiling of wreathed laurel and foliage by Mitchell. The drawing room to the right of the entrance has a marble fireplace and a ceiling of interlacing patterns incorporating urns and foliage with similar motifs in the cornice, probably by Mitchell. The central spine corridor features an arcaded ceiling with roundel decoration. The main staircase, an early 18th-century feature between the north and south fronts, has black Northamptonshire marble treads and a fine wrought iron balustrade by William Marshall. The walls feature Rococo panel decoration of 1760 incorporating urns with eagles and lions in the main first-floor panels, and a large arch-headed window at the half landing.

The pine room, originally the entrance hall, retains its original bolection moulding panelling and a Rococo ceiling of 1750. The library to the right of the pine room contains a screen with columns at its south end and a fireplace with a Rococo overmantel reset from elsewhere in 1937. On the first floor, the Empress suite comprises two rooms on the south front, both with marble fireplaces, the right one having Wedgewood style insets. The north front includes an east room with an Adam style fireplace and frieze, and a west room with a marble fireplace with brown reeded inlay. The ballroom occupies the west pavilion and was formed from the kitchens in 1937, featuring a chimney piece from Woburn Abbey. The study to the left of the ballroom contains 17th-century panelling from Pytchley Old Hall.

The south front includes garden features with lead and stone urns. Eighteenth-century walls with gatepiers are attached to the south front of the pavilions, to the rear of the west pavilion, and to the offices at the rear of the west quadrant. The house was substantially remodelled by Lord Wellesley in 1937-38, when the main entrance was relocated from the south to the north front.