Details
SP 57 NE WESTRILL AND STARMORE STANFORD PARK
Stanford Hall
7/68
11/01/55
I
GV
Country house. By the Smiths of Warwick. Begun 1697 by William
Smith for Sir Roger Cave. Decorated and altered by Francis Smith
from 1730, decorations continued in 1743 by William Smith the
younger. C19 alterations. Brick with ashlared stone dressings.
H-plan with double-pile centre. Hipped slate roofs with 4 large
brick stacks. 2 storeys, basement and attic. Plinth with
moulded set-off course. Moulded 1st floor band. Moulded and
modillioned wooden eaves cornice. Stone quoins. South front:
ashlared, 9 bays, symmetrical. 2 bay wings to left and right
project forward slightly. Central flight of steps with iron
railings, leading to doorway, flanked at basement level by
single, chamfered, rectangular blocked windows. To left, a
square, chamfered, blocked window with central mullion. To
right, a similar window with leaded lights. Wings both have 2
similar windows, all with leaded lights except that to far left
which is now blocked. Central doorway with shouldered architrave
with keystone and moulded segmental pediment supported on moulded
brackets, all in stone. C20 glazed double doors. To left and
right, 2 glazing-bar sashes with architraves with keystones and
aprons with balusters. Above, a central glazing-bar sash with
architrave with mask in place of keystone and elongated scrolls
with fruit, to either side. Apron with balusters and panels.
To left and right, 2 sashes similar to those below. Wings each
have 2 glazing-bar sashes on piano nobile and 2 above, all with
architraves and aprons in the form of bolection moulded panels.
Attic storey has 3 dormers with triangular pediments, above
central 5 bays, and single dormers on the wings with segmental
pediments, all with glazing-bar sashes. East front: plainer,
brick with stone dressings. 7 bays, symmetrical. Ashlared
basement, with 2 windows similar to south front. All other
windows are glazing-bar sashes; 6 on the piano nobile with
architraves and triangular pediments. 7 above, with architraves,
sills on brackets, and bolection cornices. 2 dormers with
triangular pediments. Central doorway on piano nobile, with
moulded doorcase with triangular pediment and part-glazed door
with over-light. This is reached via a large, late C19 double
flight stairway, heavily balustraded, with basement level doorway
flanked by single oeil-de-boeuf windows, all rusticated and set
below a heavily rusticated segmental band. Plainer west front.
North front plainer still, with markedly projecting wings.
Basement windows and 4 dormers as on south front. Main storey
have glazing-bar sashes with cambered arches and plain sills.
2 C19 extruded corner bays in brick added to recessed centre.
INTERIOR: main staircase 1730, cantilevered, open string, 3
balusters per tread, alternating turned, fluted column on vase,
and barley sugar twist. Moulded, ramped, and wreathed handrail.
Fluted newels. Panelled dado and moulded dado rail. Panelled
staircase hall with ornate plasterwork ceiling. Earlier dog-leg
staircase, c1700, closed string, turned balusters, moulded rail,
and newels with balls. Panelled dado. Ballroom, created 1743.
Coved ceiling with Rococo decoration at corners and heavily
moulded cornice. Moulded wall frames, ornate chimneypiece with
satyr terms and triangular pediment, all by John Wright of
Worcester. Ceiling painted 1880 by Felix Joubert. Library, and
several other rooms panelled, with good chimneypieces, moulded
cornices, and 6-panel doors. Stanford Hall is a variant of the
type introduced with Pratt's Clarendon House (1660s). J Lees-
Milne, English Country Houses: Baroque 221-226 (1970); CL CXXIV,
1284, 1410, 1472, (1958); J Nichols, History of Leicestershire,
IV, i, 350(1897); J Throsby, Views in Leicestershire p. 179
(1789); (Buildings of England: Leicestershire p. 384).
Listing NGR: SP5874079309
