Goldsborough Hall

Goldsborough Hall is a country house, now used as a nursing home, dating from around 1625 when it was built for Sir Richard Hutton. The building underwent significant alterations in the mid-18th century for Robert Byerley and subsequently by architect John Carr for Daniel Lascelles. Extensive restorations and conversions took place in the mid to late 20th century.

The house is constructed of sandstone and red brick in random bond with ashlar details, and is roofed with Westmorland slate. It comprises three storeys above cellars, with an oblong plan measuring five bays wide by three bays deep.

The principal front features a central two-storey porch with a round arch flanked by paired, fluted Tuscan pilasters of ashlar, now heavily restored. Above this is a plain entablature with a moulded cornice, which is continued around the building as a moulded string at ground-floor window level. The flanking bays contain rectangular windows with 20th-century cross-frames. Bays one and five have 18th-century canted bay windows with flat-faced mullions and 20th-century frames extending to ground and first floors. The second floor displays three gables containing six-light chamfered mullion and transom windows with hoodmoulds and small oculi above. The wall face rises between the gables to form a plain parapet above window height, concealing the stacks. A badge of Daniel Lascelles (died 1784) appears above the entrance. Lead rainwater pipes and heads are decorated with the Lascelles badge, and ball finials surmount the outer corners of the parapet, with a weather vane on the central gable.

The rear (west) elevation features large central mullion and transom windows lighting the staircase, with smaller windows serving the remaining rooms and oculi to the gables. A 20th-century lean-to addition extends across the ground floor on the left. The left return (garden front) has a large mid-20th-century conservatory at ground-floor centre, with flanking 18th-century bay windows continuing to the second storey and a balustrade above. The right return contains 20th-century ground and first-floor entrances with external steps and mullion and transom windows.

The ground floor interior includes a dining room on the right with an early 17th-century marble chimney piece featuring caryatids and two panels depicting Old Testament scenes. Badges of Princess Mary and Henry Lascelles are superimposed onto the lower frieze. Fluted wooden Ionic columns flank the bay window. The drawing room on the ground floor left contains an 18th-century marble fireplace and moulded plaster coving to the ceiling with acanthus leaves. The library in the south-west corner is panelled and possesses an elaborate plaster ceiling with oak and vine motifs in strapwork panels. The framed oak staircase of four flights dates from the 17th century and features turned balusters, square newel posts with elaborate finials, and a moulded hand rail. A 20th-century lift shaft and kitchens occupy the north-west corner of the ground floor. The first floor's eastern range of rooms displays Adam-style plasterwork to the ceilings, and a false ceiling in the southerly room conceals an elaborate coved and decorated ceiling beneath. The south-west room is panelled with a frieze of winged mermaids and masks below a ceiling containing strapwork and small panels featuring flowers and pomegranates in blue and gold.

Although the major alterations appear to have followed Daniel Lascelles's purchase of the house in 1760, a pencil sketch of plaster mouldings discovered on the north reveal of the dining room bay window and dated July 1743 suggests that some work, including construction of the bay windows, had begun before that date. John Carr worked at Goldsborough between 1762 and 1765 whilst employed on Harewood House by Edwin Lascelles. Chippendale and his successor William Reid are known to have made furniture for the hall. In 1922, Henry Lascelles, the heir to Harewood, married Princess Mary, daughter of King George V, and they resided at Goldsborough until 1929. Much of the internal decoration from this period, possibly including the panelling, dates from their occupation. Since then the hall has served as a school, a hotel, and a nursing home, and little of the original 17th-century house remains.