Details
LOFTHOUSE MIDDLETON LANE
SE32NW WF3 (east side, off)
Thorpe on the Hill
5/64 Thorpe Hall
5th June 1964
- II*
Large house, now store. Dated 1735 on rainwater heads, but incorporating
some earlier fabric. Red brick with sandstone dressings (rendered at ground
floor), slate roof. L-shaped double-pile plan with rear service wing. Three
storeys (externally) and 5 bays, in Classical style, symmetrical; rusticated
long-and-short quoins, lst-floor band; central doorway in moulded architrave
with scrolled consoles to a pediment on the band; vertical rectangular
windows at ground and 1st floors, square at 2nd floor, all with moulded
architraves, those at ground floor altered and the heads blocked, those at
1st floor 12-pane sashes, and those at 2nd floor blocked; moulded gutter
brackets, hipped roof with chimneys behind the ridge. Left return wall of 5
bays (including 2 bays of service wing continuation under carried down roof)
has a doorway in the 3rd bay, with moulded architrave and pediment, windows
with plain surrounds (mostly blocked). Right return wall of 3 bays has
similar windows except 1st floor of 3rd bay, which has a Venetian stairlight,
and some of these windows have thick glazing bars. Near the front of each
side wall, and in the angle to the rear, are lead downspouts with decorated
rainwater heads lettered:
"1 7 (letters in monogram)
MPMP
3 5"
Side wall of service wing has sashed windows with original glazing bars (4
at ground floor, 3 above).
Interior: in rear wall of service wing part of a timber wall-post, wall-plate
and brace of an earlier building; axial passage between front range and
service part, leading to a very fine dog-leg staircase with open string,
scrolled brackets, 2 balusters per tread, ramped handrail, and wreathed
curtail; in kitchen to rear of this passage, a wide stone-arched inglenook
fireplace (blocked and altered for insertion of cooking range); principal
rooms of house at 1st floor, with exceptionally fine decoration; right-hand
front room (saloon) in Classical style with shouldered architraves to doors,
moulded fireplace with cornice on 2 consoles and shouldered overmantel panel
with broken pediment, other wall panels with egg-and-dart surrounds,
modillioned plaster cornice; two panelled rooms in rear part, partitioned by
double-layer panelling, on the left with square bolection-moulded panels and
fluted pilasters, and on the right in Renaissance style of late C16 or early
C17 with fluted pilasters, richly-moulded frieze, and dentilled cornice (both
perhaps relocated); panelling formerly in 2 other rooms removed for storage
or exhibition elsewhere.
History: seat of the Gascoigne and Proctor families.
References: RCHM pp. 90, 98, 99, 218.
G. Roberts. Topography and Natural History of Lofthouse 1882.
Listing NGR: SE3161027009
