Brompton Grange

Brompton Grange is a small country house dating from the early to mid-19th century, built for James Flint. It is situated on the east side of River Lane in Brompton-on-Swale. The house is constructed of well-coursed watershot rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings, and has a Westmorland slate roof. It is two storeys high with attics, and comprises three bays with a later rear service wing to the left.

The front features a plinth with decorative cast-iron grilles below the floor level. Chamfered rusticated quoins define the corners. The central entrance has a four-panel door set within a recessed architrave, above a radial fanlight within a round-arched surround framed by Doric pilaster capitals and a console keystone. A portico with unfluted Corinthian columns supports a frieze with a dentilled cornice and blocking course. Ground floor French windows are set within architraves supported on consoles. First-floor windows are 18-pane sashes within eared architraves featuring small egg-and-dart friezes and cornices. A modillion cornice runs along the roof line, and there are corniced ashlar end stacks.

The rear features a semicircular two-storey projection containing the staircase, with a round-arched landing window featuring voussoirs, a tripartite keystone, and curved glass, topped with a modillion cornice. The returns to the left and right display a single bay of windows matching those to the rear of the main rooms.

Inside, a barrel-vaulted cellar is located beneath the staircase. The entrance hall has a dentilled cornice and consoles with acanthus detailing. The front rooms on both floors contain cast-iron grates within marble fireplaces, reeded panel doors with window-shutters, and high-quality cornices incorporating different motifs in each room, including a pomegranate-and-grape pattern in a first-floor bedroom. The first-floor saloon features an Adam-style ceiling and a plaster wall panel with concave corners. A cantilevered stone staircase has cast-iron balusters with acanthus leaves, a modillion-and-rosette cornice, and a central acanthus ceiling motif. A round-arched opening from the staircase to the landing is framed by Corinthian capitals and a guilloche-with-rosettes soffit, and includes a semicircular niche on the inner landing. A double-curving staircase ascends from the first floor to the attic.

Brompton Grange was owned and likely built by James Flint, an ironfounder from Flint’s Yard off Frenchgate in Richmond. The construction demonstrates very high craftsmanship, exceptional for the area and date. According to Whellan’s History and Topography of the City of York and the North Riding of Yorkshire (1871), “Mr James Flint, of Richmond, has recently erected a neat commodious residence here, on the banks of the Swale.”