Soughton Hall

Soughton Hall

A Grade II* listed country house with a striking symmetrical south front featuring 4-storey end towers, 3-storey linking bays, and a recessed 2-storey 3-bay centre with Italianate detailing. Built in red brick with sandstone dressings.

The south front presents an impressive composition. The end towers are capped with high hipped slate roofs, crowned with grouped yellow brick stacks and oversailing eaves on moulded brackets. These towers display arcades to their top floors with attached shafts and plain clasping buttresses; the central pairs of arches contain lights while the flanking pairs are blind. Beneath the parapets runs a continuous blind quatrefoil frieze, with long and short quoins below. The second floor features 2 by 2-light mullioned windows with round-headed hoodmoulds and tympana pierced with quatrefoils, the aprons beneath the transoms also decorated with quatrefoils. Continuous weathered string courses mark the divisions between storeys. The ground and first floors contain 2 by 2-light mullioned windows with transoms, repeated in the inner linking bays.

The central bay features an openwork "W" monogram flanked by cartouches on its parapets, with heraldic beasts at the inner angles. Behind the parapets rises the pitched slate roof of the saloon, crowned with a central glazed polygonal lantern with a fleche and fleur-de-lis finials to the gables. Three round-headed saloon windows rise through the upper two storeys, with heraldic and foliage tympana beneath linked hoodmoulds; these are 3-light windows with transoms. A quatrefoil frieze below the sill band projects forward to the porch parapet, which bears heraldic lions at its angles. The porch itself has square end piers and a round-arched entrance with tablet flowers in the spandrels. The entrance archway features circa 1200-style attached shafts with foliate capitals, dog-tooth enrichment and fleur-de-lis motifs, with strapwork hinges to the double doors. Flanking 3-light transomed windows flank this opening. A low single-storey extension with a flat roof projects from the left end, incorporating a canted bay window to the front.

The string courses continue around the east and west ends, along with the arcades from the end towers, where 2 arches contain lights while the others remain blind. The east end has 3 small round-headed attic dormers. The west end features a central oriel window to the first and second storeys with a moulded canopy on brackets; the upper storey has 2-light windows with a segmental arch and apron, while the lower storey has flat-headed windows with a transom. The single-storey front extension continues around the west end, containing service areas with a boarded door and a 3-light window.

The north front follows a similar though simplified style. The central bay is emphasised by a polygonal tower rising above a square porch, capped with a slated spire, openwork belvedere and narrow lights. The round-headed entrance has attached shafts with scrolled capitals and a circa 1200-style tympanum bearing a heraldic shield and the inscription "Johannes Wynne Episc. Asaph Consec. 1714". This tower is flanked by 3-light mullioned windows with 2-light windows to the ground floor. The linking bays have pairs of 2-light windows with single lights to the ground floor. Continuous parapets decorated with a frieze of roundels run across the front. The end towers support cantilevered oriels on triple brackets beneath their parapets, fitted with 3-light windows; narrow lights between the brackets serve the ground floor.

The interior contains many exceptional features. The front entrance leads into a central room which features a remarkable Italian Renaissance-style timber doorpiece giving access to the stair-hall on the left. The doorpiece displays fluted pilasters and an arabesque frieze with a guilloche border, with a door bearing panels that include a bust and mermaids. Similar detailing appears in the frieze above the interior side of the front door. Although the central room is fundamentally 18th century, the wood carving was probably collected by W J Bankes in the early 19th century and is of much earlier date. The north wall holds a marble fireplace with a fine Jacobean overmantel bearing a coat of arms. Other good panelled fittings include doors, wainscot and a moulded panelled ceiling. The stair-hall contains a Georgian open-well staircase, probably dating to 1727, with slender fluted balusters, a swept handrail and ornamented tread ends. At its foot and continuing to the left is a 19th-century 3-bay timber arcade with round arches on decorative square piers. To the left of the stair-hall lies a small library with an elaborate Gothic marble chimney piece and dentilled ceiling cornice. Further left at the west end is the Justice Room, featuring a cross-angle fireplace with a large marble cartouche bearing a lion and figures. Behind the central room is a doorway leading to a corridor with former service rooms; towards the right is a 19th-century back staircase with barleysugar balusters.

The first floor landing features inlaid wooden floors. To the left (east) is a massive fluted pilastered doorcase with panelled reveals containing huge double doors in a classical architrave, leading into the saloon. The inner sides of these doors incorporate 4 inset panels depicting the Life of Christ, 6 cherub carvings and 4 carved friezes, along with the date "Anno 1662" (they were probably collected by W J Bankes or Sir Charles Barry). The saloon ceiling displays roll-moulded joists and beams with stencilled decoration, probably dating to the 1840s. A high Victorian white marble chimney piece with inset decoration is present, along with linefold dado panelling and elaborate arched and gilt valences to the curtains. Adjoining to the east is the dining room, a large 2-storey space with an elaborate late Georgian cornice and a high Victorian chimney piece. In the centre of the ceiling is an elaborate ogee frame with painted cherubs in recessed ovals, probably part of the 1820s remodelling. The staircase continues to the attic storey in a similar style.