Copgrove Hall

Copgrove Hall is a country house built around 1820 for Henry or Thomas Duncombe. It is constructed in ashlar and gritstone with a grey slate roof.

The main structure is a square block of two storeys with a basement and measures five bays by seven bays. The building is constructed on a sloping site, which means the rear elevation and two projecting north service wings rise to three and four storeys respectively. All three main facades contain important architectural features. Sash windows with glazing bars are used throughout, each with slightly projecting stone sills and plain lintels. The ground-floor windows are considerably larger than those on the first floor.

The east (entrance) front has three central bays recessed into the main block. A central glazed door is flanked by sashes and stands beneath an enclosed single-storey portico with Tuscan columns in antis, a moulded cornice and a blocking course to the entablature. On the first floor, a central blind recess is flanked by sashes. The flanking bays project outward and contain sashes flanked by narrow eight-pane windows on each floor. A moulded eaves cornice and blocking course run the full width, above which sit shallow-pitch hipped roofs with large chimney stacks straddling the ridge to the left and right of centre. The recessed five-bay service range to the right contains one six-panel door and two glazed doors with overlights, and nine-pane sashes to the first floor.

The rear (west) facade features a central glazed door with a six-pane overlight and flanking sashes. Segmental two-storey bows project from either side, with sashes flanked by narrow windows matching the east front pattern.

The left return (south front) extends across seven bays with a wide central bay. At its centre stand seven-panelled double doors topped by a six-pane overlight, with narrow flanking windows beneath a segmental Tuscan porch featuring a deep entablature, moulded cornice and blocking course. The first-floor central window is flanked by narrow blind recesses.

At the rear, the two projecting service wings have doors opening into the rear yard. The west side of the east wing displays an open four-arch arcade at ground level. Windows throughout the service areas are of twelve, nine and six panes, with some forming blind recesses. Between the wings, the rear of the main house rises four storeys; the ground floor has been fitted with twentieth-century garages.

The interior retains many original features, including six-panel pine doors, window shutters, plasterwork and fireplaces in various stones. The entrance hall contains a fireplace of green veined marble, a ceiling frieze decorated with acanthus leaves and Greek key motifs, and doors set in fluted architraves. The dining room on the west side features a black marble fireplace with Tuscan columns, and its ceiling cornice bears oak leaf and vine motifs. The drawing room facing north possesses an elaborate white marble fireplace inset with veined brown marble plaques carved with flowers and fruit. Its ceiling frieze displays roses and acanthus leaves, and the wall panels and dado have been recently restored. The classical architraves are fluted with paterae and broken pediments with dosserets.

Both service wings contain a service stair with plain balusters; one stair has been sealed off. The house centre is dominated by a very large stair hall lit from above by a lantern with casement windows. The cantilevered stone stairs are fitted with a cast-iron balustrade decorated with circle motifs. This balustrade continues around a first-floor gallery on three sides, supported by three round arches on each side. The six-panel doors to the first floor are reeded to appear as double doors, with fluted architraves bearing shallow pyramids instead of paterae. The landing and bedroom ceiling cornices display egg-and-dart and bead-and-leaf decorations. Several first-floor fireplaces are fashioned from black and grey fossiliferous limestone with moulded brackets supporting deep mantel shelves.

Church memorials at Copgrove Church reveal that Henry Duncombe (died 1818) was the third son of Sir Thomas Duncombe of Duncombe Park. When Duncombe Park passed to a nephew, Thomas Brown, he adopted the Duncombe name (died 1874). A James Brown was recorded at Copgrove around 1860; his daughter Mary married Thomas Shiffner (died 1873). Their daughter Emily subsequently married Francis Bridgeman (died 1929). The connection to Duncombe Park is of historical interest as that house burned in 1879 and was rebuilt behind its surviving early eighteenth-century facade in 1891. It remains possible that fittings from Duncombe Park were transferred to Copgrove during the later nineteenth century.