Gristhorpe Hall

House. Built in the mid-18th century, with extensions around 1800 and further alterations in the late 19th century, originally for John Beswick. The front is limestone ashlar, rendered and whitewashed, with a slate roof and stone stacks. The original design was a three-room layout, which was remodelled and extended to the left and right around 1800; a portico and kitchen wing were added in the late 19th century. The street-facing front has two storeys and three windows, with quoins, and a later two-storey bay to the left and a raised wall to the right. A gabled, quoined projecting central bay contains a panelled door with a fanlight and pilasters, beneath a Doric portico with a modillion cornice and entablature. There’s an oculus in a plain surround above the door. Remaining windows are four-pane sashes. The eaves have modillions, and the gable has ashlar coping. The garden front has two storeys and an attic, with three bays incorporating a full-height three-window canted bay and single-bay additions on either side, connected by a ramped-up wall. A half-glazed door is accessed by stone steps to the centre of the canted bay. Windows include twelve-pane sashes in the central bay, tripartite sashes in the outer bays, and sixteen-pane sashes in the additional bays. All windows have stone sills. Tripartite keyed lintels, quoins and a raised first floor band are present on the original build. Coped gables and shaped kneelers are also features. Internal features include early 19th-century window and doorway panelling, a good Art Nouveau fireplace in a ground floor room at the right end, an early 19th-century open string staircase with turned balusters, shaped cheekpieces and a wreathed handrail, and early 19th-century fluted fireplace surrounds with paterae in all first-floor rooms except the central one. The late 19th-century kitchen wing is not considered to be of special architectural interest.