Newby Hall

Newby Hall is a country house completed by 1697 for Sir Edward Blackett, possibly to designs by Sir Christopher Wren. Between approximately 1775 and 1785, north and south wings were added on the east side for William Weddell—the ground floors by John Carr, with upper storeys added by William Belwood before 1785. At the same time, the house was reversed by the addition of an entrance porch on the east side, and the interior was comprehensively remodelled to designs by Robert Adam and William Belwood. In 1808, a single-storey dining room was added on the west side, extending northwards, by John Shaw with contributions from Thomas Weddell Robinson, 3rd Lord Grantham, and Earl de Grey for whom it was built. In the late 19th century, an upper storey was added to this dining room and a northern range of service rooms was constructed for Lady Mary and Robert de Grey Vyner.

The building is constructed of red-brown brick in Flemish bond with ashlar quoins and dressings, grey slate roofs, and wrought-iron details. The original building comprises a three-storey, nine-by-five-bay block with a central entrance—now a window—on the west side. The principal entrance is now on the east side. The wings are of two storeys and seven bays each. The added north dining room is three-by-two bays and two storeys high, facing west.

West Front

The two outer and central bays of the original house project and are defined by ashlar quoins. The central doorway, now converted to a window, is flanked by paired Corinthian columns supporting a richly carved entablature and broken segmental pediment. An entablature with a segmental pediment sits over the first floor of the central bay. The ground and first floors have unequally hung 15-pane sashes, while the second floor has 9-pane unequally hung sashes. All windows have moulded sills and sit in eared architraves, those on the ground and first floors with keystones. Deep moulded string courses run continuously around the building at first- and second-floor levels. Bracketed eaves cornices and a balustraded parapet with bulbous balusters crown the facade. Banded stacks flank the central bay and bays three and seven.

To the left, the added range has ashlar quoins. The central three-window section breaks forward with a central glazed door flanked by 15-pane sashes and recessed panels above. The added first floor features a central glazed door flanked by plate-glass sashes and a wrought-iron balcony. A high parapet with a balustraded top, hipped roof, and corniced stack to the left complete this section.

East Front (Main Entrance)

The central entrance comprises a six-panel double door beneath a fanlight with flanking pilasters. The porch features paired Ionic columns, entablature and cornice, with a blocking course carved with scrolls and swags. The porch is flanked by railings composed of an anthemion frieze in wrought iron with bands of Greek key and guilloche motifs, linked to a rectangular and a square pier on each side. Fenestration and facade details match the west front.

South (Garden) Front

The central bay of the original house breaks forward with a central doorway—now a window—beneath a segmental pediment supported by consoles with panels of finely carved fruit and flowers. All ground-floor windows have sills lowered to the internal floor level with 18-pane sashes; the outer windows are blind. Remaining windows match the west front, with the first floor of the centre bay having a similar entablature and segmental pediment.

The added south wing to the right has its central three bays breaking forward. The central panelled doors are flanked by blind recesses containing classical busts, all beneath a portico with six Tuscan columns—those at the ends paired—entablature, and balustrade. Ground-floor sashes with glazing bars sit in architraves with cornices; the first floor has six-pane sashes. An eaves cornice and high central parapet with three swagged panels flanked by balustrading complete the elevation.

North Front

The central three bays break forward with central glazed doors. Facade details match the main front, though the right two bays are obscured by the added 19th-century range.

The north and south wings project on the east side. Their facades facing the courtyard have fenestration and details matching the south-facing front of the south wing, with projecting central bays and parapets with swags, and canted bays at the east ends.

Interior

The house contains some of the finest Neoclassical detail in Europe, introduced during a remodelling of the interior for William Weddell over approximately 20 years from 1765. The designs were by Robert Adam and William Belwood, with influences from Sir William Chambers. The artists involved included Joseph Rose, Antonio Zucchi, Angelica Kauffmann, and Thomas Chippendale, with materials brought from Italy and France.

Ground Floor Principal Rooms

The entrance hall has a marble floor reflecting the ceiling pattern, with walls decorated with Roman trophies in plaster and pictures incorporated into the ornament. An organ, possibly by James 'Atheneum' Stuart, stands against the south wall.

The entrance hall is flanked by a staircase hall on each side. The grand staircase to the south gives access to the 'State Lodging Apartment' on the first floor, for which Belwood drew up plans around 1775. Italian marble columns in antis support the upper floor. The cantilevered stone stairs of three straight flights have a wrought-iron balustrade with palmette and anthemion motifs and a beaded mahogany handrail.

The staircase on the north side of the entrance hall gave access to William Weddell's private apartments. The wrought-iron balustrade is in a geometric style decorated with scrolls and leaf motifs. This staircase and the rooms in the northern wing—formerly estate offices and Mrs Weddell's bedroom suite above—were not seen in detail at resurvey.

On the west side of the house, the original entrance hall became the Tapestry Room, completed in 1776, flanked by William Weddell's study and dressing room—now a withdrawing room and sitting room—to the north, and an anteroom incorporated into the staircase hall when a partition wall was removed in the 19th century to the south. The tapestries came from the Gobelins factory in Paris. Robert Adam designed the ceiling of geometric panels with sphinxes, husk chains, and painted roundels, the two French pier tables and glasses between the windows, and the chairs, all part of the original scheme.

The sitting room and withdrawing room have pine fireplaces. Robert Adam's ceiling for Weddell's study and one of the bookcases by Belwood remains in the withdrawing room, after extensive 19th- and 20th-century redecoration.

On the south-facing side of the house, the Weddell dining room was altered to a library/sitting room in the early 19th century, but Robert Adam's interior of 1767–9 remains. The ends are apsidal—hence the blind windows—with wooden Corinthian columns in antis and an arched recess at the west end but a doorway at the east end leading to the Sculpture Gallery. The ceiling panel depicts Bacchus and Ariadne in a border of finely worked vine leaves. The marble fireplace has masks and classical motifs, and the doorcases are richly moulded with consoles supporting a cornice.

The Sculpture Gallery comprises three interconnecting rooms: two square rooms flanking a central top-lit rotunda. Robert Adam's plasterwork almost overwhelms the classical statuary it was intended to set off. Adam is also thought to have designed several of the pedestals, some with openwork grills possibly intended to contain charcoal or hot water stoves—there is no fireplace in the gallery.

The new dining room added onto the north side of the house in 1808 is square with alcoves at either end. The cambered ceilings of the alcoves have square recessed panels containing flower paterae, similar to the plasterwork by William Belwood of the portico by John Carr. The ceiling frieze of cups and lion skins with modillioned cornice was taken by the 3rd Lord Grantham from a design by his father for Baldersby (then Newby) Park.

First Floor

Some original early 18th-century features survive, including doorcases to the landing and one fireplace. Most rooms were redecorated in the mid- to late 19th century, including the motto room by Lady Mary Vyner in 1857. Improved plumbing resulted in a bathroom being inserted into William Weddell's main lodging room on the south side.

The original refurbishing of both the private apartments and Lodging Apartments for important guests was by William Belwood. Only the Circular Room, opposite the top of the Grand Staircase, retains the original decoration. This was a dressing room with curved doors painted in 'grotesque' work, possibly by Elizabeth Ramsden, who married Weddell in 1771. The remaining rooms on the south side of the house were altered in the 19th century and redecorated around 1980–85, but retain ceiling cornices, fireplaces, and door and window fittings of the late 18th century.

The second floor was not investigated.

An oak staircase in flamboyant late 19th-century Jacobean style behind the added dining room gives access to a billiard room on the first floor, decorated in the same style and incorporating some original 17th-century panelling and carving. The wallpaper, coved and glazed ceiling, billiard table, and light fittings are all original.

History

In 1680, Sir William Blackett of Wallington, Northumberland, died. He had been a successful merchant and served as Sheriff, then Member of Parliament for Newcastle. He owned many manors and mineral rights in the county, with much of his wealth coming from coal mines. In his will, he left £500 for an estate to be bought for his son Edward, along with manors, mines, and collieries in the county. Edward was Sheriff of Newcastle in 1681 and in 1689 became Member of Parliament for Ripon, by which time he had bought the Newby Estate from the Crossland family. Around 1695, Sir Edward began the new Newby Hall, costing £32,000. He died in 1718.

In 1748, the estate was sold to Richard Elcock Weddell, who bought it for his son William, then aged 12. In his late twenties, William made the Grand Tour, and in 1766 work began to remodel Newby in the latest Classical style. It appears that as well as changing the main entrance from the west to the east side, Weddell divided the building into two sections: his own private apartments north of the entrance hall, and a suite of rooms for display from the Tapestry Room facing west, the grand staircase behind, to the elaborate reception/dining room and Sculpture Gallery on the south. The first floor reflects the same division—the private rooms to the north and a 'State Lodging Apartment' facing west and south.

William Weddell employed Robert Adam to apply decoration to the principal rooms and William Belwood to work with him on the basic scheme, with consultations from John Carr and Sir William Chambers. The layout of the remodelled house reflects the late 18th-century desire to use the building as a display in itself, as well as a container for beautiful objects collected in Europe by a man of wealth and standing.

William Weddell died in 1792, leaving the house to Thomas Philip Robinson. Through this inheritance, the Newby Estate is linked with two other great estates in the area: Newby (now Baldersby) Park near Ripon, and the Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey Estate of the Vyner family. Mary Vyner inherited Newby in 1915, having married Lord Alwyne Compton in 1866 (he died in 1911); they were the grandparents of the present owner.

Sources: J. Hodgson, History of Northumberland (1827), reprinted 1973, Vol. 2, p. 258; Robin Compton, Guide to Newby Hall, 1987; Jill Low, 'William Belwood: Architect and Surveyor', YAJ 56, 1984, p. 131; C. Morris (ed.), The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 1685–c.1712 (1982), pp. 96–97; J. Cornforth, 'Newby in the 19th Century', Country Life, 25 December 1980, p. 2406.