The Hall

The Hall

A muscular Gothic Revival country house of two storeys with tall attics, constructed of coursed dressed ashlar and composed of two parts, each with three bays. The western section has three bays set back with recessed centre bays and an advanced gabled wing at the outer end. An earlier, slightly symmetrical three-bay block stands to the east, with the main entrance in the side elevation.

The building is dominated by very steep slated roofs with precipitously gabled dormers, elaborate cusped and pierced bargeboards, and larger gables featuring collars and kingposts topped with ironwork finials. Stone chimneys have sloping caps and Gothic setoffs. Single-light dormer windows with segmental heads and hoodmoulds are fitted with cusped lights to sash frames.

The western elevation displays mostly paired first-floor windows with straight heads, while three lights in echelon occupy the far left. Elaborate stone brackets support the bargeboards, and original ironwork gutters and downpipes with dated hopperheads remain in place. Ground-floor windows to the left feature varied Gothic details including patterned and shouldered strainer-arches under hoodmoulds with foliated stops. A large buttress with setoffs ornaments the left gable, with a triple-light window towards the centre.

Twin bays on the ground floor to the right have raised gablets over blind oculi, paired french windows to a square bay towards the centre, and a single french window to the canted right-hand bay flanked by single lights. Transoms and shouldered lights with chevron patterning appear in the lunettes overhead.

The entrance facade on the south presents three bays asymmetrically arranged, with a taller gable at the outer angle detailed as above and a slightly adorned hipped roof to the right wing. A gable over a two-light window features a red granite mullion and carved capital beneath a patterned Gothic arch. Below this sits a carved shield with a monogramme, with three lights featuring mixed Gothic detailing beneath. A single-storey canted bay projects forward to the far right.

The porch, gabled and buttressed and set in the angle of the frontage, displays a heraldic device and is supported to the far left by fat red granite columns at the entrance and side-light, with ironwork infill between. A low-relief tympanum contains the date 1869 entwined in foliage with a further heraldic device beneath a low Gothic patterned arch. The porch interior features a ribbed and boarded ceiling with finely carved bosses. The inner door is flanked by a granite colonette with side-light, and three Gothic niches occupy the right wall.

The house is planned with a spinal hallway from which principal rooms open to overlook the garden. The library and staircase lie to the north, with the billiard room beyond the library. The hallway continues as a service corridor. This arrangement is repeated on the first floor, with principal rooms opening off a square landing at the head of the stairs.

Throughout the house, original fittings of high quality survive virtually intact, demonstrating how the vocabulary of High Victorian decoration was intended to reflect the ordering and use of space. The interior is characterised by the range of materials and styles employed. Most rooms retain fireplaces with surrounds in varied marble finishes and cast-iron inset grates similarly varied. Most rooms also preserve strong plaster cornices of varying patterns and degrees of elaboration, together with central rosettes. Well-finished woodwork appears throughout in skirtings, dado-rails, and architraves. The hallway features fine Minton-Hollins tilework, while the staircase is a decorative tour-de-force, remarkable not only for the quality of its carpentry but also for the richness of plaster decoration to the painted glazed lantern which surmounts it.