Sion Hill Hall And Attached Courtyard Wall

Sion Hill Hall and Attached Courtyard Wall

A country house with attached courtyard wall, built in 1913 by the architect W H Brierley for Mr Percy Stancliffe. The building is constructed of hand-made red brick in English bond with Portland stone dressings and a plain tile roof.

The house is two storeys high with a complex plan. The main front comprises a central section of three bays set back from the main elevation, a right wing of four bays, and a left wing of six bays. The central three bays feature a central bay of Portland stone with a panelled door and overlight with intersecting glazing bars set within an eared architrave and keystones forming an Ionic doorcase topped by an open round-headed pediment bearing the date 1913. Above this is a window with an eared architrave scrolled at the bottom. To either side on the ground floor are Venetian windows with segmental brick relieving arches. A continuous first-floor band runs across the remainder of the front, with casement windows with glazing bars.

The right wing breaks forward and has brick quoins. Its three left-hand bays contain sashes, while the right-hand bay breaks forward further and has an oculus with glazing bars to the first floor. The left wing also has brick quoins. Its three right-hand bays are similar to those of the right wing. The next bay to the left breaks forward, and its right return contains a six-panel door in a moulded architrave with a double keystone, with a sash and glazing bars above. Further left, two bays break forward again, containing sashes with glazing bars, those to the ground floor set beneath flat brick arches. A servants' wing extends further to the left.

An attached contemporary brick wall forms a courtyard to this front. The front section of the wall is low and stone-coped with wooden railings above. It has a central pair of brick gate piers with stone cornices and ball finials.

The garden front comprises twelve bays. All windows except those to the servants' wing have contemporary louvred shutters. The central four bays feature fully-glazed French windows to the ground floor and first-floor sashes with glazing bars. The flanking bays break forward and have brick quoins with sashes to each floor; the upper sashes are flanked by blank oculi with moulded terracotta surrounds. Further left, two bays have brick quoins to the left, a half-glazed door with overlight to the right, sashes with glazing bars, and a central oculus to the first floor. The right side has a four-bay servants' wing of similar character.

The eaves are oversailing and the roofs are hipped. Chimneys rise to the ridges with plinths, friezes, cornices and blocking courses. A large chimney above the central door has a recessed, keyed blank arch.

The interior features an entrance hall with a quoin-vaulted ceiling and round-arched doors with moulded eared architraves. A dogleg staircase has balusters of barley-twist and bulb-and-umbrella type. The boudoir is panelled and contains an 18th-century marble fireplace with an eared architrave and two shell niches. The dining room has a large 18th-century white marble fireplace with Ionic columns, believed to have come from a former hall that previously stood on this site. All other rooms are plainly finished but feature deep plain cornices and simple 18th-century-type fireplaces with moulded architraves.

This house is generally regarded as one of Brierley's most successful country houses and is supposed to be loosely based on Middlefield House, Cambridgeshire, designed by Edward Lutyens in 1908.