Details
MOULTON MOULTON
NZ 2203-2303
10/94 The Manor House
19-12.51 (formerly listed as
Manor House)
GV I
Manor house. Rebuilt c1570, with some C17 alterations and addition of
c1938. For Leonard Smithson. Rubble with ashlar dressings, pantile roofs.
3 storeys and part basement, 2:3:2 bays; H-plan, with infill between the
rear wings, and with C20 2-storey wing to rear right. Plinths, chamfered
rusticated quoins. Between front wings, 5 steps up to front door, with side
parapets rising from ball finials and returning with bulbous balusters from
corner pedestals to corners of wings. Central range: central oak door in
eared and shouldered architrave with bead-and-reel and other decorative
motifs, cyma recta freize below drip-mould stepped down in centre. Flanking
doorway, cross windows in architraves with cornices stepped up in centre.
On first floor, cross windows in architraves with pulvinated friezes and
cornices, with pediments on central part of pediments, triangular in outer
bays and keyed semicircle in centre. On second floor, single-light windows
in architraves with pulvinated frieze in outer bays, and keyed oculus in
architrave in centre. Wings (both alike): cross windows in architraves with
cornices stepped up in centre on ground floor; cross windows in architraves
with pulvinated friezes and cornices with central triangular pediments on
first floor; a single 2-light mullion window in architrave with pulvinated
frieze and cornice in each gable on second floor. Elaborately-shaped
kneeler and ashlar copings to each gable. Across central range, and
returning along inner returns of wings and returning to meet gable slope,
parapet with moulded rail, turned diagonally-set balusters and interval
pedestals with recessed panels with stepped semicircular tops. Rear:
quoins, stepped and corniced external stack rising from original rear wall
of central spine. Renewed mullion windows to infilling between wings and to
wings. Cyma recta kneelers and ashlar copings to wing gables. Left return:
central blocked doorway, flanked by cross windows with cornices on ground
floor; a central single-light window flanked by cross windows, all with
cornices, on first floor; 3 single-light windows with cornices on second
floor. Shaped kneelers, ashlar copings. Corniced double stack rising from
centre of ridge. Right return: basement from left: single-light window,
chamfered window, blocked door-head and shuttered coal-chute. Ground floor:
cross window, single-light window, both corniced and 5-panel door in
chamfered rusticated quoined surround with lintel chamfered as flat arch:
first floor: cross window, single-light, cross window and C20 single-light
all with cornices; second floor: 3 single-light windows with cornices.
Corniced double stack in centre of ridge. C20 block to far right follows
fenestration pattern. Interior: entrance hall with C17 panelling, ashlar
architrave to fireplace, stop-chamfered beams. Ground-floor room to left
has pine panelling interspersed with pilasters with strapwork and
carpenters' tools on the capitals, diagonally-moulded frieze below ceiling
cornice, and eared and shouldered overmantel. In ground-floor room to rear
right, kitchen fireplace with chamfered rusticated voussoirs to segmental
arch, and large chimney, with priest's hole. To rear left, C17 oak
staircase with boldly-twisted barleysugar balusters, vase finials on newels
and with dog-gate at bottom. Moulded ceiling. Secondary stair to right has
turned balusters. On first floor, above hall, drawing room with ashlar
fireplace, with banded rustication behind pilasters supporting a deep frieze
carved with circular garland of fruit and end drapes. First-floor doors
have 2 eared and shouldered panels and bolection frames. All rooms on first
and second floors were heated and have original stone fireplaces. Roof has
collared trusses. There is a tradition that James I spent a night in the
house, either on his way south to assume the English throne, or on his way
to the races at Gatherley in the same parish. The Smithsons of Moulton were
Protestants, but their kinsmen at Cowton and Kiplin Hall were Recusants.
The house is shown in an early C18 drawing in Samuel Buck's Yorkshire
Sketchbook (1979) p352. VCH, i, p191.
Listing NGR: NZ2350003739
