Vaila House, Vaila

Vaila House is an asymmetrical country house combining three distinct architectural periods. At its centre stands a two-storey Georgian castellated hall built between 1895 and 1900 by E P Peterson of Bradford, flanked to the north by a contemporary gabled range and to the south by the original two-storey and attic gabled haa dated 1696, positioned parallel to the main structure.

The house displays harled walls and margined windows to the 1696 haa, with harl-pointed rubble walls and projecting window cills to the later work. All features stugged and polished sandstone ashlar dressings and details.

The principal south elevation is near-symmetrical, with a symmetrical three-bay advanced centrepiece. A two-leaf vertically boarded timber round-arched entrance door with decorative hinges, stepped reveals and hoodmould occupies the ground floor centre bay. Narrow windows flank this at ground level, with four evenly-spaced windows at first floor. A machicolated parapet runs at eaves level, stepping up to the centre where an architraved armorial panel is terminated by crenellated bartizans. Two-bay gables of the north and south ranges flank the centrepiece. The right gable contains first-floor windows only; the left gable has a single narrow ground-floor window in its right bay and a two-storey four-light circular corner tower obscuring the left bay, with regular fenestration, machicolated and crenellated parapet and circular bartizan intersecting at the south-west.

The west elevation is asymmetrical across three bays, with a tripartite window at ground floor in the centre bay, a bipartite window above it, bipartite windows at ground and first floors in the left bay, and a blank bay with corner tower at right.

The north (rear) elevation is near-symmetrical, featuring four tall round-arched windows to the centre with machicolated and crenellated parapet at eaves. Gables flank this; the left is blank while the right gable contains a round-arched door with a window above in its left bay.

The east elevation of the former haa comprises three bays; a modern lean-to conservatory obscures the centre and right bay at ground level. A service wing extends from the north-east corner. The upper floors are near-symmetrical, with an infilled window to the right of centre at first floor and windows in the flanking bays. Dormers break the eaves in the outer bays, displaying bipartite round-arched windows with crowstepped dormerheads.

The service wing forms an L-plan single-storey extension to the north from the north-east corner, comprising a crowstepped gabled building to the north-east with crenellated buildings adjoining to the west and south.

The house features plate glass timber sash-and-case windows throughout. Leaded stained glass windows by Powell Bros. of Leeds display armorial designs to the Great Hall and depict St Magnus and Earl Rognvald in the windows flanking the entrance. Grey slate roofs are piended over the hall and pitched over the north and south ranges, with crowstepped gables. Harl-pointed apex stacks serve the south range, while stugged ashlar apex and ridge stacks serve the north range, all coped with circular cans.

The interior contains a neo-Jacobean Great Hall with a compartmented wooden ceiling featuring foliate carving to the bosses. A segmental-headed stone arcade on squat columns at first floor opens into a gallery over the vestibule on the west wall. A round-arched chimneypiece with simplified paired gothic columns occupies the north wall. The south wall comprises the former principal elevation of the 1696 haa, featuring a roll-moulded former entrance door with an armorial panel of the Mitchell family above it, dated 1696. The west ground-floor room contains an Adam Revival chimneypiece of the 1890s, while the east room displays a contemporary neo-Jacobean timber chimneypiece bearing the Anderton coat-of-arms and motto.

Retaining and garden walls extend around the property. A harl-pointed rubble retaining wall with ashlar coped parapet runs parallel to the south elevation. Ashlar principal steps with harled and coped parapets are centred on the entrance door. A round-arched vertically boarded timber door with decorative hinges opens in the retaining wall to the right of the steps. A rubble wall adjacent to this extends south at right angles, enclosing a walled garden and terminated by square v-jointed stugged ashlar classical gatepiers at the intersection, crowned with corniced and ball-finialled pyramidal caps on pulvinated cushions. The retaining wall extends and steps up to the east, enclosing a rectangular east garden, with stone steps flanked by pyramidal-capped piers accessing both the east and south walls. A retaining wall to the left of the principal steps articulates as a bastion around the tower and extends northward parallel with the west range as a free-standing wall.