Skutterskelfe Hall, The Butler'S Pantry, Rosedene And Briardene

Skutterskelfe Hall, The Butler's Pantry, Rosedene and Briardene

A substantial country house of 1838, designed by Salvin for the 10th Viscount Falkland. The main hall was remodelled and a porch added in the later 19th century. The complex now functions as an office block with three separate dwellings.

The main house is constructed in sandstone ashlar with a graduated Lakeland slate roof, designed in the Classical style and arranged in a U-plan. The entrance front rises two storeys and comprises seven bays with a slightly recessed centre. The design features a plinth, quoins, a first-floor band and cill string, deep eaves cornice, and a parapet with balustraded panels and top cornice. A substantial three-bay projecting porch dominates the entrance, with detached Tuscan columns, an entablature with dentil cornice, and an open segmental pediment displaying an achievement of arms. The entrance itself comprises a half-glazed double door beneath a segment-headed overlight, flanked by matching sidelights. All openings are set in architraves with keystones rising to cornice. Similar windows appear in the returns, which are topped with balustraded parapets.

The ground floor features plain sash windows in architraves with moulded cills and apron panels. The first floor has 12-pane sashes set in architraves with bracketed cills below the cill string. The central sash, raised on a panel, is emphasised by a console-bracketed cornice and segmental pediment. Two corniced transverse stacks sit near the centre of the roof.

The left return spans five bays and is similar in character, except for a central ground-floor window with a swell frieze and cornice. Set back on the left is a domestic wing of two lower storeys, featuring a plinth, first-floor cill string, cornice and blocking course, with 12-pane sashes throughout.

The right return is largely obscured by extensions. A one-storey single-bay link connects to The Butler's Pantry, a one-storey flat-roofed two-bay apartment stepped back to the right, featuring a glazed door with tall overlight and 12-pane sashes. This adjoins Rosedene and Briardene, a two-storey building of six irregular bays with herringbone-tooled sandstone detailing. This section contains one four-panel door, one French door, and one boarded door, with windows comprising mostly 12-pane sashes on the upper storeys and plain sashes or casements below.

The courtyard elevations reveal the full complexity of the composition. The left side shows the rear of Rosedene and Briardene, with one and a half storeys rising over a basement to two storeys, with varied doors and windows. The centre displays the rear of The Butler's Pantry, featuring four bays with 12-pane sashes and a centrally inserted French door. The right side of the courtyard shows the rear of the main house, dominated by a three-and-a-half-storey staircase tower. This tower features floor cornices, 12-pane sashes, and a low-pitched pyramidal roof with deep eaves soffit on long brackets. Below it are three blank wall panels. From this tower, a narrow linking bay of three lower storeys leads to a two-storey right section and finally to a one-storey stable-garage range that partially encloses the courtyard at the rear. Most windows are sashes with glazing bars, with three inserted garage doors. The two-storey section features a pedimented end.

The interior displays high-quality Victorian decoration, lovingly restored throughout. The tiled entrance hall features a panelled dado and a French-style rococo marble fireplace, with polished oak double entrance doors. The drawing-room to the left contains a similar larger fireplace and lavish rococo plasterwork, including a ceiling rose and outer panels with foliage and shells, floral wall panels with serpentine heads, and shorter panels over doors and below windows. This room retains its panelled dado and window shutters.

The dining-room to the right of the hall retains its original 1838 plaster cornice and frieze decorated with acanthus and festoons, with a panelled dado. Both the drawing-room and dining-room feature six-panel oak doors with elaborate hinges and lockplates; similar but plainer doors are found elsewhere.

At the end of the dining-room stands an elaborate five-bay carved oak bookcase with a nodding central coat-of-arms and carved heads to all sections, likely removed from the library at the rear of the house, where its matching companion remains. This room features panelled shutters and reveals, and carved rococo pelmets over all three windows.

A cantilevered open-well staircase ascends through two floors, with the upper flight being an exact reproduction of the lower. It features a slightly ramped handrail, a carved newel, and a cast iron balustrade with linked units, sloped on the flight and curved outwards to the bottom curtail step. The staircase has a panelled dado and is topped by an arcaded two-by-three-bay lantern with a barrelled roof.

The library contains a plaster ceiling similar to, but simpler than, that in the drawing-room. It also houses the other great bookcase, which conceals a door fitted with mock shelves of books.