Sutton Park

Sutton Park is a country house built between 1730 and 1740, altered by Thomas Atkinson for Phillip Harland. It is constructed of pinkish brick laid in Flemish bond with ashlar dressings and has a slate roof.

The building follows a double pile plan with three storeys, a cellar and attic. It comprises a central range of five bays with single-storey three-bay wings that link the main range to two-storey, two-bay pavilions. The house is designed in the Palladian style.

The entrance front to the north features a plinth band, ground and first-floor sill bands, a first-floor platt band, and a modillion-corniced pediment. At the centre stands an entrance with a flight of iron-balustraded stone steps leading up to a panelled double door, the top four panels now glazed. Above is a fanlight with radial glazing bars within a keyed archivolt, framed by a classical architrave with attached Tuscan columns and full entablature. The windows are sashes with glazing bars, those to the second floor being nine-pane unequally-hung sashes, all set beneath flat, gauged brick arches. An oculus with glazing bars sits in the pediment. Lateral brick stacks mark the flanks.

The wings, probably added in the mid-18th century, are curved. Each has a central door of six raised and fielded panels beneath a fanlight with radial glazing bars (that to the right wing painted), and similar painted fanlights light the flanking sashes with glazing bars. All openings are set under round brick arches. An eaves band and balustrade, continuing the platt band of the main range, run across the pavilions as a first-floor sill band. The pavilions have bands and pediments matching the main range, with sashes with glazing bars to the ground floor and six-pane sashes above (those of the right pavilion painted). A very large kitchen ridge stack rises above the left pavilion. On the left, a tall brick wall projects forward, masking the service wing.

The garden front to the south is similar to the north front but more imposing. It features a central flight of sweeping stone steps ascending to a full-height fifteen-pane sash set in an architrave with attached Ionic columns, a pulvinated frieze, a dentilled cornice and blocking course linking it to a blind balustraded apron panel. Above this is a window with a swept-shouldered, console-pedimented architrave. Partially-concealed basement windows open to the ground; tall fifteen-pane sashes light the ground floor. First and second-floor windows match those of the north front, and a lunette sits in the pediment. The wings feature round-arched sashes with glazing bars set in stone-imposted, round-arched recesses; the right wing has a central door and a lead downpipe with a boar's head to the rainwater head. The pavilions match the north front but with large Venetian windows to the ground floor. Tall brick walls extend to either side: on the left is a round-arched gateway that ramps down and returns a short way, while on the right is a painted window, an added twentieth-century conservatory (not of special interest), a ramp down concealing the service range, and a continuation at lower level with buttresses.

The interior contains very finely-detailed contemporary work, including pieces by Cortese and Flitcroft. Some features are imported, and several fireplaces came from Normanby Park, Scunthorpe (a house by Smirke, 1825–30). Six-panel mahogany doors set in architraves with decorated friezes above are found throughout, along with elaborate panelling and cornices.

The entrance hall features a chequered marble floor and fluted Composite columns with elaborate cornices. Decorative plasterwork by Cortese adorns the ceiling. Off the hall on the left is a small panelled room; on the right is a small room with a marble fireplace flanked by arched alcoves.

The library to the rear centre has a moulded chair rail and architraves, and a fine imported marble fireplace with pilasters, a double-ogee head and putto to the keyblock. An elaborate modillion cornice frames a rococo ceiling by Cortese decorated with flower and fruit motifs.

The morning room to the rear left displays elaborate imported panelling by Flitcroft with fluted Ionic capitals supporting a heavily-detailed cornice. A decorative fireplace is set in eared architraves to picture panels with pulvinated bay leaf friezes and egg and dart cornices.

The Chinese room to the rear right has a Venetian window with acanthus-leaf capitals to fluted columns. Chinese wallpaper, dating from 1750–70 and restored, lines the walls. An elaborate ceiling cornice with palmettes and acanthus leaves frames a central rose oval. An elaborate imported marble fireplace features fluted Ionic pilasters with swags and paterae and urns to the frieze. An original fireplace, now in the late-twentieth-century dining room, has an elaborate architrave with fluted Ionic columns, paterae and swags to the frieze, a modillion cornice and a swan-neck pediment on further columns.

The stair is a wooden dog-leg open-string design with panelled soffits to the treads, turned balusters on gadrooned bases (two per tread), and an elaborate newel and spiral curtail to the handrail. The landing features a tripartite window with a lion's head below and a cartouche above, decorated with swags and corbels. A decorative coved ceiling with elaborate light fitting caps the stairwell.

The first floor includes a front right room with raised and fielded panelling and a moulded cornice; a rear left room has a good basket-grate fireplace and modillion cornice. A good closed-string dog-leg stair ascends to the attic, one room of which retains Elizabethan panelling, probably reused from the Elizabethan house that preceded the present house.