Hovingham Hall

Hovingham Hall is a country house built between approximately 1750 and 1774 by Thomas Worsley VI for himself. It was constructed in limestone ashlar with a Westmorland slate roof. The design was based on Palladio's scheme for a town house, though a balancing south-west wing was never built. A nineteenth-century servants' wing was added to the east of the north range. The craftsmen involved in its construction are documented in Thomas Worsley's accounts held at Hovingham and included Jonathan Rose the plasterer, John Devall Junior who provided an Ionic chimney-piece, the joiners Moss, Kelsey and West, Jelfe the mason, Abbott the painter, and Lawrence the woodcarver.

The building is L-shaped in plan with a riding school providing a substantial entrance wing, flanked by stables to the south.

The garden facade comprises a spinal range with a cross wing to the left. It has two storeys with basement and attics. The spinal range presents a symmetrical nine-bay facade with a return for the unbuilt south wing to the right, forming a tenth bay. A central pedimented three-bay pavilion breaks forward slightly. The ground floor features a plinth and faced rustication to a blind arcade, with a double-leaf half-glazed door beneath a fanlight flanked by inserted eight-pane fixed windows. A central keystone bears the inscription "Pro viribus non pro votis erexit T.W." The first-floor band carries a blind balustrade with rusticated blind arcade. A Venetian window is flanked by plate-glass sashes in eared architraves. A Doric frieze with bucrania and paterae in the metopes is present, with an oculus to the pediment. The flanking sections each have a blind arcade of rock-faced rustication containing a half-glazed door beneath original lunettes flanked by inserted eight-pane fixed windows. The first floor has unequal nine-pane sashes in eared architraves, those to the right being smaller than those to the left. A moulded eaves course is present. To the right, a gabled return bay has a six-panel door beneath an overlight with two fixed windows above. Ridge and eaves stacks are present. A staircase dome projects to the left at the junction with the north wing.

The north wing features a three-bay pedimented pavilion to its west facade and six bays to the return, with two storeys. The west facade has a rock-faced plinth carrying a continuous sill band to sashes with glazing bars in architraves with canopies. The first floor has sashes with glazing bars in architraves. A Diocletian window appears in the pediment. The return facade has six bays, the leftmost being part of the pavilion and taller, breaking forward. To the left bay there are two basement windows in rock-faced plinth carrying a continuous sill to a sash with glazing bars in architrave with canopy. To the right are two basement windows to the left. The plinth and rock-faced rustication carry a blind arcade to the ground floor containing sashes with glazing bars, the central one in the former position of the main entrance. The first floor has sashes with glazing bars in a moulded architrave to the left bay, and casements in keyed architraves to the right bays. Ridge stacks are present.

The street facade is a pedimented gable end to the street, with two storeys and three bays with curved flanking walls. Rock-faced stone appears to both storeys and flanking walls, with ashlar to the pediment. A tall keyed carriage arch rises through two storeys with an impost band, flanked by keyed sashes with glazing bars to the ground floor and keyed six-pane sashes to the first floor. The band above bears the motto "VIRTUS IN ACTIONE CONSTITIT". A plain pediment with an oculus is flanked by dragon acroteria and surmounted by a cornice stack. The ramped flanking walls terminate in square-section piers with ball finials and carry a continuation of the impost band.

The main entrance to the house has always been through the riding school, a unique arrangement. The riding school features tripartite round-arched arcades to each end with grisaille paintings above to the east end and windows to the ballroom balcony. The school is lit by three large elliptical-arched tripartite windows at first-floor level on each side. A double-leaf doorway beneath a fanlight at the west end leads to Samson Hall, originally a carriageway to the forecourt beyond, flanked by stables. By 1778 this arrangement was found to be impractical and these three rooms had been converted to halls. All have quadripartite vaults held on Tuscan columns. Samson Hall is floored in hexagonal oak blocks suitable for carriages.

The drawing room in the north wing is the former entrance hall and has a tripartite Corinthian colonnade of painted plaster and a Doric fireplace. The dining room, originally a state bedroom, contains a fluted Corinthian colonnade and an Ionic fireplace. An early nineteenth-century wrought-iron open well staircase stands beneath a dome painted in the 1830s with a copy of Guido Reni's "Aurora".

The Ionic room features an overhanging entablature with anthemion frieze supported by fluted Ionic columns of scagliola, now painted over. The coved ceiling has guilloche and waterleaf enrichment. The ballroom is square in plan and plain, with an Ionic frieze and an east doorway leading to a balcony giving onto the riding school. The green room was originally three bays and is now subdivided, with baseless Doric columns with egg-and-dart abacus.