Abbot Hall Art Gallery

Abbot Hall Art Gallery, originally built as a hall in 1759, is likely designed by John Carr of York for Colonel George Wilson. The building features coursed, squared rubble with quoins on a plinth, a band between the ground floor and cellars, and a modillioned eaves cornice with a parapet. It is mostly two storeys high with cellars, and has a symmetrical east elevation with seven bays.

Curved stone steps lead up to a central part-glazed door with an interlaced fanlight, flanked by small windows in an architrave with a projecting keystone and moulded imposts. Above the door is a sash window in an architrave with splayed feet on a bracketed sill. There are full-height canted bay windows with sashes on either side, and latticework grilles to the cellar. The lower bays on either side of the central block feature Venetian ground floor windows, with a sill band above for the tripartite sash. Each end of the main building has a single-storey gabled bay with two semicircular-headed sashes in recesses, and a blocked oval opening in an open pediment above; one sash has been replaced by a part-glazed door in the left-hand end bay. All sashes have glazing bars in stone surrounds, and decorative rainwater heads are located at the rear.

Inside, the entrance hall is divided by two Roman Doric columns with responds. The ground floor has decorative plaster cornices, and the main front rooms feature plaster frames on the walls and corniced fireplaces with applied Baroque foliate decoration. The main stair at the rear left is curved at both the top and bottom, with a spiral curtail, cut string, turned balusters, and a moulded handrail. Throughout the building, there are panelled doors, some set in pedimented doorcases, and shutters.