Whitgift Hall Including Attached Walls to North Outbuildings and Screen Wall to South East

Details

SE 82 SW TWIN RIVERS MAIN STREET (south side) Whitgift 1/38 Whitgift Hall, including attached walls to north, outbuildings and screen 14.2.67 wall to south-east (formerly listed as Whitgift Hall, Whitgift Parish)

GV II*

Small country house, including attached screen walls and outbuildings. Early C18 for Stephenson family, with later C18 and early C19 alterations for the Stovin and Coulman families, including wing walls to north front, bow windows and screen wall to south front, interior remodelling. Minor later alterations. House and northern wing walls of red brick in Flemish bond with scored joints; south front of kitchen wing stuccoed and incised in imitation of ashlar. Limestone and sandstone ashlar dressings. Welsh slate roof. Lead and felt roofs to dormers. South-east screen wall of red brick, partly stuccoed, with stone coping. Main range had double-depth plan with 2-room central entrance-hall north and south fronts, single-bay wing walls flanking north front, kitchen extension and later outbuildings to east. Main range: 2 storeys with basement and attic. North front: 2:1:2 bays with central bay breaking forward and low 2-storey, single-bay wing walls to either side. Basement forms plinth, with recessed 6-pane sashes to side bays in plain ashlar surrounds linked by plain ashlar band at ground-floor level. Chamfered quoins to main range and central bay. Entrance has C19 swept flight of 10 stone steps with wrought-iron balustrade of alternate plain and wavy bars carrying wreathed handrail. Fine ashlar doorcase with architrave flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters carrying entablature with dosserets, plain frieze, dentilled cornice and dentilled segmental pediment breaking forward over dosserets. 6-fielded-panel door and radial overlight in reveal. Ground floor: recessed 12-pane sashes in ashlar architraves with projecting corniced sills. Ashlar entablature with stepped frieze and moulded cornice forming first-floor band. First-floor sashes similar to those of ground floor. Deep, finely-dentilled ashlar eaves cornice breaking forward over the quoins. 4 drain-pipes with moulded rectangular rainwater heads bearing raised roundel ornament. 3 full dormers with unequal 9-pane sashes in flush wooden architraves, the central dormer with a radial overlight beneath an elliptically arched head, the side dormers with triangular pediments. 4-sided hipped roof. Pair of large ridge stacks to sides, with remains of stucco, ashlar dentilled cornices and blocking courses. Wing walls each have plinth and impost band to central full-height round-arched recessed panel containing single ground-floor opening with dummy 6-pane casement above recessed panelled apron in ashlar architrave, and single first-floor segmental-headed dummy 6-pane sash with painted glazing bars in ashlar architrave with sill; moulded ashlar cornice and blocking course in line with first-floor band of main block. South front: 3 bays, with central bay breaking forward, flanked by full-height semicircular bows; single-storey kitchen extension set back to right. Plinth and quoins similar to north front, but without quoins to central bay. Central 6-pane basement window beneath entrance stairs; single blocked windows to each side. C19 entrance has flight of 8 stone steps with wrought-iron balustrade of alternate plain bars and geometric panels, wreathed handrail and baluster-shaped newels. Sandstone Doric porch with columns on tall pedestals carrying dosserets with triglyphs and guttae, moulded cornice and open pedimented roof. Pilasters flanking original entrance with 6-fielded-panel door, moulded lintel and radial fanlight in eared architrave beneath entablature with plain frieze and moulded cornice. Flanking bows each have three 12-pane ground-floor sashes in wooden architraves with ashlar keystones. Slight differences in bows suggest 2 separate builds. First-floor moulded band. First-floor sash to central bay and bows similar to those of gound floor, but with shallower keyed flat brick arches. Moulded cornice and flat roofs to bows. Deep moulded cornice to main range. 3 full dormers similar to those on north front but without radial overlight to central flat-headed window, similar drain-pipes as to north front. Kitchen wing to right has inappropriate C20 casement, parapet with moulded ashlar band (a continuation of the first-floor band to main range) with blocking course. Early C19 flat-roofed projecting canted first-floor bay to east side of main range, contemporary with bows, has central dummy window flanked by single 12-pane sashes in surrounds similar to those of south front, moulded cornice similar to bow windows. Coped screen wall attached to kitchen wing curves round to south east, and has pair of doorways and a boarded window, all with wooden architraves beneath rubbed-brick flat arches. East end ramped down to early C19 single-storey privy, square on plan, with south front containing 6-fielded-panel door and 12-pane sash in architraves beneath segmental arches; stepped eaves, temporary C20 flat roof (formerly with a hipped Westmorland slate roof). Similar 12-pane sash to rear. Interior. Entrance/stairhall has oak fielded-panelled dado with moulded ramped corniced dado rail, fine early C18 open-well cantilevered staircase with ramped and wreathed corniced handrail, twist column newels, carved profiled tread-ends and 3 balusters to each tread, with alternating twist, column, and fluted columns on bulb-and-vase with square knops. Landing has C19 balustrade in similar style, and panelled balcony containing bowed section with moulded cornice and blocking course, flanked by attached twist columns. Moulded plaster cornice and ribbed ceiling border to lower hall. Upper stairhall has boldly panelled ceiling with plain and leaf-and-dart mouldings and paterae ornament, elliptical arch to inner hall with scrolled consoles, archivolt and panelled moulded soffit. Inner hall to south has round-headed opening with archivolt and fielded-panelled soffit, moulded ceiling cornice and foliate centre- piece. C19 south entrance hall has half-domed niche, elliptical arch with moulded soffit, and moulded cornice to panelled ceiling with acanthus centre-piece. Secondary staircase, in east canted bay, has moulded handrail and column-on-vase balusters. North-west room has fielded panelling with moulded dado rail, and an early C19 panelled marble chimney-piece inserted beneath panelled overmantel in full-height Doric surround with fluted pilasters and frieze with triglyphs and guttae, flanked by round-headed half-domed cupboards with fielded-panel doors; moulded wooden cornice with plasterwork guilloche border to ceiling. Moulded cornice to north-east room. South-west room has fielded panelling with later C19 burr wood graining, reeded dado rail, reeded pilasters flanking bow window with lions head ornament, moulded wooden cornice with grapevine border to ceiling, ribbed marble chimney-piece with roundel ornament. South-east room has panelled pilasters with roundel ornament flanking the bow windows. First floor: north-east room has fielded panelling with later C19 wood graining, dado rail, moulded frieze with anthemion and paterae, leaf-and-dart ceiling cornice, spine beam with panelled soffit and similar corniced wooden pilastered chimney-piecewith marble slip and ribbed cast-iron fire surround; C19 marble fire surround and moulded cornice to north-west room; reset early C18 cyma-moulded stone chimney-piece to south-east room; moulded cornice, pilastered chimney-piece with fluted frieze to south-west room. Pilastered surrounds to bow windows similar to ground floor. 2 reset early C18 moulded stone chimney-pieces in attic. Fielded-panel window shutters and window seats, 6-fielded-panel door in architraves throughout. Original roof timbers, incorporating tie beams with Y-shaped ends, one arm attached to the wall, the other to the wall plate above. Interior of outside privy, derelict at time of resurvey, has moulded skirting, moulded dado rail, and moulded plaster cornice, comparable to some of the fittings in the main Hall and stableyard ranges. John and Mary Stephenson owned the Hall in the early C18, and Mary, described as of "Drypool (Hull) of Whitgift Hall" was still alive in 1740. By 1777 the estate had been acquired by Cornelius Stovin, succeeded in 1780 by James Stovin of Reedness. By 1801 it appears to have passed into the ownership of John Gee of Haldenby Park, to be inherited in 1818 by his daughter Mary (1782-1868). In the late C19 their daughter, Mary Armitage, sold the estate to Thomas Bladworth. The early C19 remodelling of the Hall and grounds, including the new stableyard ranges (qv) and privy, were probably undertaken when the Coulmans came into possession in 1818-19. A stylish house with good details and a complex architectural history. Renovations underway at time of resurvey (April 1987). N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire, West Riding, 1959, p 543; W Richardson, [Some Useful Consumers of Waste: History in Two Marshland Parishes, Adlingfleet and Whitgift, 1981, pp 146-7, 153.

Listing NGR: SE8166222808

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

165426

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Richardson, W, Some Useful Consumers of Waste History in two Marshland Parishes Adlingfleet and Whitgift, (1981), 146-7 153
Pevsner, N, Radcliffe, E, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The West Riding, (1967), 543

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