Details
FORCETT AND CARKIN FORCETT PARK
NZ 1612-1712
10/44 Forcett Hall
19.12.51
GV I
Country house. c1740, with alterations c1780. Early C18 work by Daniel
Garrett, for Richard Shuttleworth, later work possibly by James Paine.
Sandstone ashlar with some render, Westmorland slate roofs. Entrance front
(north): rendered, with ashlar dressings, 3 storeys, 1:1:3:1:1 bays, with
later ashlar 5-bay service range of 2 storeys and basement, formerly a
banqueting hall, to the left. Main house: plinth. Rusticated quoin strips
at ends and between first and second, second and third, fifth and sixth,
sixth and seventh bays. Central leaved 8-panel door in keyed basket-arched
architrave with unfluted Ionic pilasters supporting frieze and cornice.
Sash windows with glazing bars in architraves on ground and first floors, 6-
pane sashes in architraves on second floor. Dentil cornice, continued in
pediment over central 3 bays, with crossed acanthus fronds above a ribbon in
the tympanum. Hipped M-shaped roofs. Ashlar stacks at ends and between
first and second, fifth and sixth bays. Service range: 6-pane basement
windows; door in fifth bay of ground floor; sashes with glazing bars on
ground and first floors; parapet. Garden front (south). Main house: 3
storeys and basement, 1:5:1 bays. Rusticated quoin strips at ends. Central
5 bays project slightly and have a giant order of unfluted Ionic pilasters.
Basement has banded rustication and 6-pane sash windows. In centre, added
imperial staircase with rusticated walls terminating on panelled pedestals
and with square-section turned balusters; leading to French window with
architrave, pulvinated frieze and broken segmental pediment containing
block of sarcophagus shape. Windows have architraves; sashes on ground
floor, dropping down to sill band forming top course of basement; sashes
with glazing bars on first floor, 6-pane sashes on second floor. Dentil
cornice; parapet. Ashlar stacks at ends and between third and fourth, sixth
and seventh bays. To right, 5-bay service range of 2 storeys and basement:
6-pane basement windows; sashes with glazing bars on ground and first
floors. Cornice, parapet. Corniced ashlar stacks between second and third,
third and fourth bays. West end (main house): 3 storeys and basement, 4
bays. Plinth. Rusticated quoin strips. Rusticated basement with 6-pane
windows, except in first bay, blocked by steps; sashes with architraves and
sill band on ground floor; sashes with glazing bars on first floor; 6-pane
sashes on second floor. Dentil cornice. Parapet. East end of service
range: 2 storeys, 5 bays. Central 6-panel door with architrave, the ground-
floor windows to its right blind, the rest sashes with glazing bars.
Running the whole length of the ground floor of the service range on the
east end is an added loggia, with a Welsh slate roof supported on 4 cast-
iron columns, the roof continuing over lean-to ashlar fuel stores up against
a quadrant garden wall which terminates in a gate pier with banded
rustication: the opposite gate pier terminating a wall attached to the
Stable Block (qv). Interior, main house: entrance hall to north has fluted
Ionic pilasters and decorative cornice with enriched modillions; to its
right the staircase hall, with carved oak curving open well staircase with
turned balusters with large vases supporting a gadroon supporting an
inverted column, the bottom terminating baluster being more elaborately
carved; on the south side at the west end the present library, possibly once
the best bedroom, said to have been rebuilt after a fire c1780, has Adam-
style fireplace and annex separated by 2 fluted Ionic columns and pilasters;
to east of this is the sitting room with white marble fireplace with
festoons on the frieze, ceiling frieze with acanthus consoles and a
decorative plaster ceiling with ribbon motifs; to east again a very fine
drawing room, with marble fireplace with yellow Ionic columns and frieze
with urn and grapes, softwood panelling, cornice of modillions interspersed
with rosettes and a decorative plaster ceiling with ribbon motifs; to its
east the former dining room, very plain with later undercut cornice.
P Leach, "The Architecture of Daniel Garrett, I", Country Life (September
12, 1974), pp 694-697 and "The Architecture of Daniel Garrett, II" Country
Life (September 19, 1974) pp 766-769. N Pevsner, Yorkshire: The North
Riding, (1966) pp 163-4; VCH i, p 65. Samuel Buck's early C18 sketch shows
the hall from the south without its giant order, and with narrow wings
projecting forward: thus Garret's work may be a rebuilding (Wakefield
Historical Society, Samuel Buck's Yorkshire Sketchbook (1979) p 365).
Listing NGR: NZ1721212376
