Hutton In The Forest Hall

Hutton-in-the-Forest Hall is a fortified tower with substantial country-house extensions, dating to the late 14th or early 15th century when it was built for the Hutton family. Significant alterations and additions followed, including an early 17th-century gallery designed by Alexander Pogmire for Henry Fletcher, further extensions in the 1680s by Edward Addison for Sir George Fletcher, and works in 1824-7 by George Webster, 1845, and 1871 by Anthony Salvin for the Fletcher Vane and Vane families.

The tower is constructed of thick dressed red sandstone with a battlemented parapet and flat roof. Other walls are of pink and red sandstone ashlar, also with stone-battlemented parapets under graduated greenslate roofs, and feature large 19th-century bonded red sandstone chimney stacks. The building comprises 2½ storeys over a vaulted basement. The original rectangular tower is complemented by a left 2½-storey, 5-bay classical facade, a further 19th-century 3-storey, 3-bay tower to the left, and a rear 3-storey, 7-bay wing; the last two bays are in a mock-tower form. A right gallery wing adjoins the medieval tower at a right angle, consisting of 2 storeys and 5 bays, with an attached 2-storey, 5-bay extension. A 19th-century stone porch with a shouldered archway provides access to the tower, which retains 2-light windows from the 15th century, with cusped heads, and stair loops. A stair turret projects above the parapet.

The classical facade features a quoined-surround doorway, now a French window, under a large cross casement window set within a stone architrave flanked by pilasters and a bracketed cornice; a central attic swag is also present. Various cross-mullioned windows are incorporated, with ground-floor windows often beneath cornices and first-floor windows alternately featuring open triangular and segmental pediments. Attic windows are 2-light and positioned within eared architraves, topped by a pilastered parapet adorned with urn finials. The left tower exhibits Tudor 2-light windows, with pointed heads on the first floor and all under hoodmoulds, along with angle turrets, one featuring circular angle watch towers. Similar windows are found in the left return wall. The rear wing contains sash windows in stone architraves, while the mock tower has 2-light Tudor windows. The right wing, dating to around 1640, showcases a polygonal central open porch under a bay window supported by clustered columns and segment-arched openings with corresponding clustered columns, now fitted with casement windows; the upper-floor features mullioned-and-transomed windows. The battlemented parapet was likely added by Salvin. A further 19th-century wing has a stone-surrounded doorway and 2-light windows.

Internally, original features are present, including a section of the angle newel staircase within the tower. A late 17th-century curved staircase features cherubs and acanthus leaves. Elaborate plaster ceilings, primarily from the 19th century by Webster and Salvin, are complemented by 19th-century panelling, internal parallel shutters, and stone fireplaces.