Howsham Hall

Howsham Hall is a country house, now a school, located at the north end of Howsham Main Street. It dates from around 1610 with earlier origins, featuring alterations to the east front around 1709 and a substantial interior refurbishment during the 1770s. The house was built for Sir William Bamburgh in the Jacobean period, with the east front remodelled for Sir John Wentworth, and the late 18th-century refurbishment carried out for Nathaniel Cholmley, possibly by the architect John Carr or Peter Atkinson.

The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with a brick servants' wing, and is roofed in Westmorland slate. It adopts a U-shaped plan, with the servants' wing forming the fourth side of a square to the rear.

The south front displays Jacobean Renaissance styling and comprises two storeys with a cellar, arranged in seven bays. A projecting full-height central porch dominates this elevation, flanked by canted outer bays. The porch features a double door beneath a radial fanlight set within an architrave, flanked by paired Ionic columns on pedestals supporting a plain entablature. Above this sits a pair of Corinthian columns framing a single-transomed four-light mullion window, with a panel bearing the arms of Sir William Bamburgh impaling those of his wife, Mary Forthe of Butley, Suffolk. The remaining windows are double-transomed four-light mullions, except the canted bays which contain twelve-light windows arranged 2:2:4:2:2. Both main fronts feature parapets with merlons and ball finials.

The west front, probably Elizabethan in origin with later alterations to the right, rises three storeys. It preserves a Tudor-arched doorway and irregular fenestration of two-light and four-light double-chamfered mullion and transom windows with flat hood-moulds, those to the right set in wooden frames.

The east front, remodelled around 1709, comprises two storeys across six bays. It displays fifteen-pane unequal sashes to the ground floor and eighteen-pane sashes to the first floor. All fronts are distinguished by a series of ornamented lead downpipes featuring pendants of fruit, Wentworth griffins, and leopard's heads; one downpipe to the west front is dated 1709.

The servants' wing to the rear stands two storeys tall across seven bays, featuring Venetian windows to the outer bays and casements and fixed windows throughout. It has a dentilled eaves course and a hipped roof with ridge stacks.

The interior contains significant 18th-century decoration. The main hall is divided by two Roman Doric columns in place of a former screen, with an entablature carrying a frieze of fret pattern and bucrania. The assembly room to the left displays richer ornamentation, with Ionic pilasters along the walls supporting a frieze of anthemion and candelabra motifs, and Corinthian columns flanking the mullions of the bay window. The fireplace is of white and verde antico marble with a frieze of ribbon ornament, attributed to Fisher of York. The staircase hall behind the main hall contains an open-string staircase with slim turned balusters supported on Tuscan columns. The dining room, now a classroom, retains earlier decoration probably contemporary with the remodelling of the east front, including heavy panelling to dado level, an acanthus cornice, and doorcases comparable to those at Beningborough Hall and possibly by the craftsman Thornton. The first-floor saloon features fine Adam-style stucco ceiling work and an inlaid marble fireplace. The west range contains an early kitchen, now used as a study, with two large Tudor-arched fireplaces. One bedroom preserves original William Morris wallpaper.