Beningbrough Hall

Beningbrough Hall

A country house completed in 1716, designed by William Thornton with plasterwork possibly by John Bagnall, built for John Bourchier. The house is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with ashlar dressings and a Cumberland slate roof, flanked by pavilions of mottled pink brick in English garden wall bond with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs.

The building follows a double-pile plan with flanking screen walls linking the main house to the pavilions, executed in a Baroque style. The main house comprises two storeys with a basement and attic, measuring eleven bays wide by five bays deep. The symmetrical façade features a central three-bay break with flanking paired bays defined by alternately-raised quoin strips that rise into a band. Above this, large paired console brackets support a deep moulded cornice with a blocking course over the break. A ground-floor band and first-floor band run across the façade. The central entrance bay has steps with a later iron balustrade leading up to a glazed doorway set between Doric pilasters within an architrave, supporting a bold entablature with cornice. Above the doorway is a cartouche bearing the Bourchier cipher and knot, flanked by horses emerging from drapery. The first-floor window above features an eaved and shouldered corniced architrave with triglyph keystones and a panel linking it to the eaves band. Windows throughout are 18-pane sashes with flat gauged brick arches and raised cills, except for 20-pane sashes to the basement and 8-pane sliding sashes to the attic, some of which have been replaced by side casements. The roof is hipped with two spans, a central well, and ridge stacks.

The screen walls flanking the house feature alternate recesses and projections, the latter containing niches and balustrades, and turn at right angles to connect the main house to the pavilions. The pavilions are two storeys high, each measuring one bay by one bay. They are symmetrical in design, with angle pilasters, keyed round arches to the ground floor (blind to the front and rear), impost bands, and flat-arched first-floor windows (blind to the returns). Each pavilion has a dentil cornice, a hipped roof, and a leaded ogee-capped cupola with ball and spire finials. The left pavilion is crowned with a bell, whilst the right pavilion carries a wind clock.

The rear or garden front of the house mirrors the front elevation but with the end bays breaking forward instead of the centre. Strong central emphasis is provided by an elaborate doorcase with channelled quoins and attached Ionic columns supporting a frieze and cornice. The central part is recessed and features an elaborate cartouche rising into a segmental pediment. The window above is set in an eaved architrave with a scallop keystone, cornice and blocking course. A lead-covered blocking course surmounts the central bays. A mid-nineteenth-century conservatory attached to the left end has a corniced orange-brick lower wall supporting a wooden frame with flanked angle pilasters, frieze and cornice.

Interior

The interior displays a very high standard of craftsmanship throughout, with most of the original work surviving. Features include extremely fine wall panelling with carved over-doors and roundels, elaborate friezes and cornices, decorative ceilings, and heavily moulded fireplaces with overmantels and panelled doors in architraves. The entrance hall contains giant fluted composite pilasters, whilst the saloon features fluted Corinthian columns. Particularly notable is the panelled stair hall with its cantilevered wooden stair with parquet treads incorporating the Bourchier knot and monogram, and elaborately carved balusters. The backstairs feature good-quality ironwork. The attic rooms contain Elizabethan panelling of interest.