Details
KIRBY WISKE GREEN LANE
SE 38 SE
(south side, off)
5/10 Sion Hill Hall and
attached courtyard wall
- II *
Country house and attached courtyard wall. 1913 by W H Brierley for Mr
Percy Stancliffe. Hand-made red brick in English bond, Portland stone
dressings, plain tile roof. 2 storeys. Main front: central 3 bays set
back, wing to right of 4 bays, wing to left of 6 bays. Central 3 bays:
central bay,of Portland stone, has panelled door and overlight with
intersecting glazing bars in eared architrave with keystones set in Ionic
doorcase with open round-headed pediment bearing date 1913; window above has
eared architrave, scrolled to bottom. To either side on ground floor a
Venetian window with segmental brick relieving arch. First-floor band,
continuing across rest of front. First-floor casement windows with glazing
bars. Right wing, breaking forward: brick quoins, 3 left-hand bays have
sashes; right-hand bay breaking forward, oculus with glazing bars to first
floor. Left wing: brick quoins. 3 right-hand bays similar to left-hand bays
of right wing. Next bay to left breaks forward and the right return has a
6-panel door set in moulded architrave with double keystone and sash with
glazing bars above. To left, 2 bays break further forward and have sashes
with glazing bars, those to ground floor under flat brick arches. Servants
wing further to left. An attached contemporary brick wall forms a courtyard
to this front. Front section of wall is low, stone-coped, with wooden
railings above and has central brick gate piers with stone cornices and ball
finials. Garden front: 12 bays. All windows, except those to servants
wing, have contemporary louvred shutters. Central 4 bays have fully-glazed
French windows to ground floor and first-floor sashes with glazing bars.
Flanking bays break forward and have brick quoins and a sash with glazing
bars to each floor, the upper one flanked by blank oculi with moulded
terracotta surrounds. Further to left, 2 bays having brick quoins to left;
a half- glazed door with overlight to right; sashes with glazing bars; and a
central oculus to first floor. To right: 4-bay servants' wing similar.
Oversailing eaves. Roofs hipped. Chimneys to ridges with plinths, friezes,
cornices and blocking courses. Large chimney above central door has
recessed, keyed, blank arch. Interior: entrance hall has quoin-vaulted
ceiling and round-arched doors with moulded eared architraves. Dogleg
staircase with balusters of barley-twist and bulb-and-umbrella type.
Boudoir: panelled; an C18 marble fireplace with eared architrave; 2 shell
niches. Dining room has a large C18 white marble fireplace with Ionic
columns, probably from the former hall that stood on this site. All the
other rooms are quite plain, but have deep plain cornices, and simple C18-
type fireplaces with moulded architraves. This house is generally regarded
as one of Brierley's most successful country houses, supposed to be loosely-
based on Middlefield House, Cambridgeshire designed by Edward Lutyens in
1908. Clive Aslet, 'Red Brick Classicism, the Country Houses of
W H Brierley, II', Country Life, Sept 30, 1982, pp 974-977.
Listing NGR: SE3734184424
