Plas Heaton

Plas Heaton is a large country house of irregular plan built in restrained Georgian classical style. It is constructed of limestone rubble, formerly rendered, with sandstone dressings, and has a hipped and graded slate roof with plain rendered chimneys.

The principal facade faces south-east and is symmetrical, comprising nine bays. The composition has a three-storey, three-bay central section recessed between advanced three-bay wings with hipped roofs. The left-hand wing dates to circa 1800 and is genuinely two storeys, while the right-hand wing is actually an earlier three-storey structure with the upper floor windows of the upper storey concealed externally by blind lower halves that cut across the intermediate floor level. The end bay of the right-hand wing is an addition made to balance the three-bay section to the left. The windows throughout are original 12-pane unhorned sashes with moulded stucco surrounds, accompanied by some visible red brick constructional quoining and voussoirs, and sandstone sills.

The central bay features a tetrastyle portico in antis with a central part-glazed entrance within, flanked by 12-pane sashes with renewed scribed stucco. The first floor has a tripartite central sash with a 12-pane central light and narrow flanking four-pane sections, with 12-pane outer sashes. A further smaller 12-pane sash appears on the inner return of the right-hand wing at this level, corresponding to the intermediate floor; a blocked-up window exists on the opposite return. The second floor of the central section has six-pane sashes flanking a four-pane central casement, which represents a late 19th-century conversion. A continuous moulded cornice with parapet is returned around the sides and rear.

The south-west side is of two storeys and roughcast with moulded stucco surrounds and quoins, this treatment returning onto the entrance facade a short distance to allow the quoins to return. There is an elegant three-window bow with flanking windows; the left-hand window on the ground floor has been converted to a 20th-century part-glazed entrance with a six-pane overlight. The ground floor bow has 18-pane sashes with a 15-pane flanking window to the right on the ground floor; the first-floor windows are all 12-pane sashes.

The rear elevation is more or less symmetrical and features a recessed central section flanked by large three-storey canted bays, all work of the 1760s. These are of rubble, formerly rendered, with brick surrounds to the openings and sandstone sills. The central section has an early 19th-century two-storey extrusion with a depressed-arched entrance to the left and a 20th-century fire escape ascending to a former first-floor window, now a part-glazed door. The canted bays have six-pane sashes to the second floor and 12-pane sashes to the ground and first floor of the left-hand one, some of which are dummy windows; the right-hand bay has an eight-pane French window to the ground floor centre with flanking 12-pane sashes, and tall early 19th-century 18-pane sashes to the first floor. Tripartite sash windows light the early 19th-century single-bay storeyed wings to the left and right of the central 1760s block; that to the left has a leaded tripartite basement window.

The north-east (farmyard-facing) side has 12-pane 18th-century sashes and 20-pane 19th-century sashes in asymmetrical arrangement, with a modern fire escape to the left. At basement level is a 17th-century boarded and studded door in a pegged, chamfered frame with decorative ironwork, flanked by two-light wooden mullioned windows. Adjoining this elevation is an early 19th-century block that links the main house with an 18th-century pedimented pavilion wing of two low storeys, which has a blind oculus in the pediment and further tripartite and 12-pane sashes. This connecting block has a single-storey hipped addition to the south-east which adjoins a hipped rectangular ty bach block with two pointed-arched entrances and Gothick windows with simple intersecting glazing bars. This side of the house is adjoined by rubble walls enclosing produce garden and service court spaces to the north-east.

The entrance hall has a sandstone flagged floor with offset flags and a marbled 20th-century chimneypiece. The ceiling is compartmented into three sections and has a dentilated plasterwork cornice. Segmental arches with moulded archivolts lead to the stairwell (straight ahead) and the dining room (to the left), both with plain panelled pilasters. The drawing room door, fronting the dining room entrance on the left, is a fine six-panel Georgian mahogany door with ribbed and fielded panels within a simply moulded architrave. The drawing room has an early 19th-century scrollwork plaster frieze with ceiling margins of conjoined lozenges and foliated bosses. A classical wooden fireplace with similar scrollwork decoration is set with a figured grey and white marble inner surround. Panelled shutters and reveals feature throughout.

The dining room has a mahogany door within the recessed arch and three other similar doors leading into it. The room features a bowed end and a semi-circular buffet niche at the opposite end. A classical plasterwork frieze with egg-and-dart and honeysuckle motifs is complemented by a contemporary wooden pelmet fascia to the windows, painted and gilded. The buffet niche has panelled pilasters and palmette capitals with garland reliefs, and a gadrooned archivolt with frieze returned around the inside of the niche. The original veneered mahogany fitted sideboard remains in place, featuring a convex central section and flanking concave sections. A Carrara marble Ionic fireplace with plain frieze and moulded cornice completes the room.

To the right of the hall are three rooms relating to the primary house of circa 1690. The first has one wall of large-field oak fielded panelling with associated moulded cornice and fielded eight-panel door. An early 20th-century bolection-moulded fireplace is inscribed with the date 1715 and initials THD, and incorporates a Dutch panel painting in 17th-century style. The next room has one-and-a-quarter of its walls panelled in large-field oak panelling of similar date, a contemporary old oak floor, an eight-panel door, and panelled window seats, reveals and shutters. The third room in the sequence contains a contemporary blackened stone fireplace with basket arch. The primary staircase, which rises to the attic floor, is a good oak dogleg with fielded panelled sides, square newels and swept moulded rail with columnar balusters.

The main stair is a stone well stair with iron stick balusters and mahogany scrolled rail; a first floor balustraded gallery and Adamesque plasterwork to the ceiling are noteworthy features. Two large first-floor reception rooms lead off from the landing. One is oval in shape and incorporates a ceiling painting. The other has plasterwork cornice and mahogany doors as before, with a white and grey figured marble chimneypiece with Ionic columns supporting a deep mantelpiece, and a frieze with elongated rosette motif. Further fielded doors and a sub-divided panelled room on the first floor in the primary north-east section relate to the late 17th-century phase of construction.