Michaelstow Hall

Details

RAMSEY AND PARKESTON MICHAELSTOW ROAD TM 23 SW 2/64 Michaelstow Hall (Chafford School)

GV II

House, now special school. 1903, in Neo-Georgian style. Red brick in Flemish bond with limestone dressings, roofed with slate and lead. Complex plan comprising main range facing SE, longer parallel range to rear, billiard room in left front corner projecting forwards, and service range to right, with 6 internal stacks in main part of house. 2-storey flat-roofed extensions to right and rear right, c.1920. Single-storey flat-roofed extension to rear of main block, c.1960. Covered corridor from left rear corner connecting with smaller house to NW. The main building is of 2 storeys with attics, the billiard room of one storey, parts of the service range of one storey. The central part of the SE (entrance) elevation is set back, with a balcony in front forming a recessed porch. 2:3:2 window arrangement, the outer windows being sashes of 24 lights on the ground floor, 16 lights on the first floor, the 2 inner windows on the ground floor being sashes of 24 lights, the 3 inner windows on the first floor being French windows opening on to the balcony. All the windows have near-flat arches of rubbed brick; the outer ground-floor windows have aprons of rubbed brick. The central first-floor window has a canopy or blind-box on scrolled brackets. In the attic storey, 5 sashes of 12 lights in dormers with moulded heads, alternately segmental and pedimental. All the sashes have ovolo-moulded glazing bars. Central double half-glazed doors with sidelights and overlight. Moulded brick plinth. 4 Ionic columns and 2 Ionic pilasters, the balcony forming the entablature with balustrade. Lightly moulded stone band at first-floor level on side blocks. Moulded cornice with egg-and-dart ornament on plain brackets. Quoins of alternate blocks of stone and rubbed brick. Hipped roofs. The billiard room has a Venetian window with heads and piers of rubbed brick and a projecting triple keystone, similar quoins and similar cornice to the gable, and a rectangular lantern with hipped glass roof on pilasters with a moulded cornice. Moulded cast-iron gutters. Moulded cornices on the stacks. An added water tank on the main roof has displaced a bell-turret, which is now on brick piers on the ground one metre NE of the main block; it has 4 wooden piers, a zinc domed roof, wooden finial, and a hung bell marked 'J. Warner and Sons Ltd., 1903'. The NW (garden) elevation is of similar style and detail, the central part set back, with some differences - a central Venetian window on the first floor with 2 round lights above and a shallow balcony with balustrade, and below it a small 6-light sash with projecting triple keystone. In the left block is a doorway, now enclosed by a covered corridor to the single-storey extension; its windows are tripartite sashes, with bullseye glass on the ground floor. Most of the interior features and finishes are original. The house was built for a Mr. Garland, architect unknown, and was sold to Essex County Council in 1919 for use as a special school; at the time of survey, October 1985, it was standing empty, offered for sale. 'In the comfortably Neo-Georgian style of the day, similar to houses by Ernest Newton (Sir N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England - Essex, 1965, 320). The garden elevation is adversely affected by the single-storey extension.

Listing NGR: TM2201330744

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

120295

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Essex, (1965), 320

End of official list entry

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