Doldowlod House, (partly in Nantmel)

Doldowlod House

A Jacobean-style country house of two storeys with attic, built in coursed rock-faced stone with a diamond-pattern slate roof and stone chimney stacks featuring octagonal freestone shafts. A string course runs between the storeys. The windows are mullioned and transomed with octagonal-pane glazing and hood moulds. Shaped gables have freestone copings and finials, and the roof is concealed behind a coped parapet.

The house is a composite structure, begun in the 1840s and substantially enlarged in the 1870s, reflecting a significant period of expansion and remodelling.

The eight-bay south-west entrance front shows this development clearly. The four near-symmetrical bays on the right side constitute the original 1840s house. The two central bays are brought forward, and the 1870s entrance is positioned left of centre. It comprises a doorcase with Tuscan pilasters and entablature, and a balustrade with strapwork enrichment and pinnacles. Double panelled doors sit beneath a round-headed overlight. To the right is a three-light window, and in the upper storey both central bays have smaller three-light windows, above which the parapet features an open balustrade. The outer bays of the 1840s house have shaped gables. The left-hand bay contains a pair of three-light windows (inserted in the 1870s in place of an earlier entrance), a two-light oriel in the upper storey, and a two-light attic window. The slightly wider right-hand bay has a two-storey three-light canted bay window with a strapwork balustrade to the parapet, and a small single-light attic window.

The 1870s extension has a higher roof line. Beginning at the right end next to the earlier house is a bay set back incorporating the dining room, with a two-storey three-light canted bay window beneath a strapwork balustrade and a two-light dormer with shaped gable. Next, brought forward, is a higher three-stage tower with two-light windows, a balustrade with angle pinnacles, and a higher turret on the rear right side with an onion-dome roof. On the left side of the tower are two bays lower than the remainder of the house, comprising service rooms. The narrower right-hand bay has three-light windows and a two-light dormer with shaped gable. The wider outer gabled bay has three-light windows and a two-light attic window.

The four-bay south-east front shows the 1843-1845 work in its three left-hand bays, with a gabled bay set forward on the right added in the 1870s to house the library. The left end bay has half-glazed doors with a mullioned overlight and a three-light oriel window in the upper storey. The next two bays have three-light windows in the lower storey and smaller two-light and three-light upper-storey windows. Two dormers have two-light windows beneath shaped gables. The right-hand bay has a two-storey three-light canted bay window with parapet and a two-light attic window. Attached to the right end is a rubble-stone wall with a boarded door leading to the courtyard at the rear.

The two-bay north-west end wall has, on the right side, a three-light window in the lower storey and a cross window above. On the left side are a pair of narrow transomed lights in the lower storey and a single similar window above.

At the rear of the house, where a narrow courtyard faces a steep bank, part of the service rooms were demolished in the late 1940s. The remaining structure includes a short gabled wing housing a service stair. Its north wall has four-pane sash windows lighting the stair and barred windows in its gable end, one of which retains its pantry mesh. On the south side of the wing, where the rear wall of the main house is scribed roughcast, is a three-light mullioned and transomed stair window inserted in the 1870s. The rear of the 1870s library, at the end of the south-east front, has a corbelled first-floor stack and two-pane sash and replacement windows.

The present entrance hall was originally the dining room. It leads to an L-shaped corridor providing access to the main rooms. Rooms of the 1840s retain marble fireplaces and Jacobean-style coffered plaster ceilings. The 1870s library has an ornate wooden chimneypiece. The contemporary dining room has a less ornate panelled ceiling and a wooden chimneypiece with double pilasters. The Jacobean-style open-well staircase, also of the 1870s and modelled on the staircase at Aston Hall, has ornate square newels, a balustrade with open round panels, and ornate tread ends. Panel doors have blind round heads with radial tracery. Windows have panelled shutters. The open-well service stair is unusually fine, with turned balusters and square panelled newels with ball finials.