Gledstone Hall And Forecourt Walls, Pavilions And Gates

SD 85 SE 1/110

MARTONS BOTH GLEDSTONE ROAD (east side) Gledstone Hall including forecourt walls, pavilions and gates (formerly listed as Gledstone Hall)

GV II*

Large house now in multiple occupation, 1922-6 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Sir Amos Nelson. Sandstone ashlar (from Salterforth) and Cotswold stone slates. Two storeys, but with an unusually tall and prominent roof. A double pile with centre- piece and end pavilions, linked by flank walls to separate lodge pavilions which define the forecourt. The entrance front is of thirteen bays, each end pavilion being a single bay. The central three come forward as a pedimented portico, distyle is antis, with arched side walls. Consoled doorway. The windows are all casements set in sunk vertical panels, with small panes below and large above. The garden front is of eleven bays on a similar arrangement, but without the central break, there being only a pediment and a consoled doorcase. From the second to the fourth, and the eighth to the tenth bays there are single-storey colonnades of Doric columns in antis. To either side, against the rear walls of the service blocks, there are single-storey pedimented garden features, tetra- style with central arches breaking the base cornice. The forecourt is rectangular, with fine ornamental wrought iron gates at the north end (the overthrow carrying the Nelson arms). These are flanked by four large piers carrying urns. Similar piers flank the side entrances and are suggested by rusticated bands on the walls of the kitchen and garages which come forward of the main house. The kitchen is marked by an arched Vanbrughian chimneystack. Minor piers carry balls. Wing walls run to two lodges or pavilions, each two storeyed with pyramidal roofs and central chimneys. One window and door (with consoled pediment) on the outer face, one window below and two above on the inner face. Interior: The circulation areas are heavily articulated to give a greater effect of space. Entry is to a Doric columned vestibule with rusticated lintels, and much of the northern side of the ground floor is taken up with a vaulted passageway which has a floor of white and black inlaid marble. Off this opens a stair in the same material, of three open flights under a large elliptical arch. The centre of the south side is a further Doric hall with green marble columns and a similar floor. The remaining rooms are simple, with heavily moulded ceilings in circular patterns. That to the right of the hall has a fireplace of dark green and white marble. One of the last houses of its size to be built from new by Lutyens, foreshadowing his Middleton Park, Oxfordshire. It has been called "one of his finest and most sensitive houses". Daniel O'Neill: Sir Edwin Lutyens: Country Houses, 1980, p144.

Listing NGR: SD8866451257