Details
This List entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 30/03/2017
TA 13 SW,
680-1/5/201
KINGSTON UPON HULL,
HOLDERNESS ROAD (North West side),
Holderness House
(Formerly Listed as: HOLDERNESS ROAD Holderness House Rest Home)
12/11/73
II
House, now old people's home. 1838, converted mid C20, with mid C20 additions. By James Clephan of London.
MATERIALS: yellow brick with ashlar dressings and steep pitched slate roofs, some of them with fish scale patterns.
EXTERIOR: Two side wall, two ridge and two gable stacks, several with grouped octagonal flues. Elizabethan Revival style. Plinth, sill bands, quoins, string courses, low parapets, coped gables, some of them shaped. Two storeys plus basement and attics; fivexfive windows. Windows are mainly stone mullioned cross casements. Entrance front has a square tower porch, four stages, with steps flanked by urns leading to an an open porch with a round-arched opening on three sides, the front one flanked by paired Doric pilasters. Margin stile fielded six-panel door with moulded surround and cornice. Above, a corniced 12-pane sash on each side, and above again, similar windows with pediments. Fourth stage, above main cornice, has a round window on four sides. Flanking the porch on the first floor, two two-light windows on each side. Above, to right, two through-eaves dormers with two-light mullioned windows. Below, on either side, a small single window, then two two-light windows. Two two-light mullioned windows to right of the porch and to left, a corniced doorway flanked by similar windows. Beyond, to left, a single-storey corridor with a three-light mullioned window and to left again, a gabled kitchen range with a similar window and tall side wall stack. Garden front, to right, has projecting wings with shouldered shaped gables. Each has a canted two-storey bay window with parapet and a five-light window on each floor. In each gable, a graduated three-light mullioned window. In the centre, a central two-light window flanked by single lights, the larger ground floor ones with transoms. Above again, three through-eaves dormers with shaped gables and two-light mullioned windows. South-east front has a central projection with shouldered shaped gable containing a graduated three-light window. On the lower floors, a three-light window, that to the ground floor large. On the first floor, on either side, two two-light windows, and above, on either side, two through-eaves dormers with shaped gables and two-light mullioned windows. Below, two taller two-light windows on each side. To right, a two-storey rear wing, three windows, and mid C20 two-storey addition.
INTERIOR: has entrance hall with shouldered wall panels, with festoons, and panelled ceiling. To left, a three-bay Tuscan colonnade to the stair well. Cantilever stone stair with landings, with patterned cast-iron balustrade. Stairwell has wall panels and on the first landing a three-bay Ionic colonnade. Panelled ceiling with skylight. Ground floor library has moulded cornice and fitted bookcases with glazing bars. Eared and shouldered wooden fireplace with overmantel mirror. Right ground floor room has moulded cornice, frieze with Greek Key and oval panelled ceiling. Mid C19 wooden fireplace with overmantel mirror.
HISTORY: Holderness House was the home of Thomas H. Ferens, managing director of Reckitts and Hull’s great benefactor, from 1909 to his death in 1930. The ashes of Ferens and his wife are buried in the grounds of the house. By the terms of Ferens’ will the house became a ‘rest home for poor gentlewomen in reduced circumstances’ endowed with £50,000. It continues as a residential care home for women run by the Holderness House Trust.
A Methodist, Ferens served as Liberal MP for East Hull and he spoke in the House of Commons to further the cause of women’s rights. He supported women’s suffrage at home and repeatedly drew attention to the trafficking of women and girls in the colonies. Ferens provided the funds to establish the University College, Hull [later University of Hull] as well as the Art Gallery named after him (see National Heritage List for England entry 1218995).
Listing NGR: TA1164430492
