Stables to Plompton Hall

Stables to Plompton Hall

A complex of farm outbuildings and a private house, originally built around 1757 by John Carr for Daniel Lascelles. The structures are constructed in ashlar with stone slate roofs.

The complex comprises three two-storey ranges grouped around the north, west and east sides of a square courtyard, linked by high walls. The south side of the courtyard contains Plompton Hall itself.

The west range serves as the main entrance block, consisting of seven bays with rusticated quoins. The central bay projects slightly and features a tall rusticated archway topped by an open triangular pediment surmounted by an octagonal cupola. Three flanking bays have engaged arcading. The ground floor contains rectangular windows (part-blocked to the left) and twentieth-century casement windows to the right. The upper floor has square six-pane sash windows with plain sills and lintels. An impost band runs around the left and right returns and continues at coping level along the linking walls to Plompton Hall. The range has a moulded eaves cornice and hipped roof. The cupola features a projecting band below clock faces which alternate with circular recesses, dentilled eaves, an octagonal roof, and a moulded base to a ball finial. The rear facade has outer bays forming shallow side wings, with an open triangular pediment over the archway. Two flights of steps extend from the arched entrance to first-floor doors. A twentieth-century glazed door is located on the ground floor to the left, with a blocked doorway to the right. The rear has square six-pane and blind windows, and a projecting eaves band with two surviving lead rainwater heads bearing Lascelles badges and down-pipes. The south end was converted to a house in the mid-twentieth century and remains unoccupied; the remainder is used for farm storage.

The north range is a three-bay single-aisled hay barn. Its south (yard) side has a tall central arch with the lower half blocked, flanked by two pairs of blind windows to each storey containing cruciform ventilators. An impost and eaves band runs across, with a hipped roof above. The rear features a blocked cart entrance, and the left return has a twentieth-century flat-arched opening for farm machinery. The interior contains an arcade of square piers and round arches with an aisle on the north side. A dog-kennel is built against the curtain wall between the stable range and barn at the north-west corner of the courtyard.

The east range is a low five-bay block with taller, square, end bays. Its west (yard) side has a central archway flanked by two bays with engaged arcading. The south end was converted to a house around 1980, while the north end has two plank doors with a segmental-headed opening above. An additional carriage-house with a round arch and projecting band with parapet above stands at the north-east corner of the courtyard.

Daniel Lascelles purchased the Plompton Estate around 1755. Work on the stable block began around 1757, and John Carr may have followed the design of Colen Campbell's stables at Houghton. Around 1760, Carr began work on a new house to the south-west of the stables, but in 1762 Daniel Lascelles bought Goldsborough Hall and work stopped at Plompton. It is likely that when the new house was demolished, the south range of the stables was converted to create the present hall.