Description

TL 5248,
11/25

GREAT ABINGTON,
PAMPISFORD ROAD (North Side),
Abington Hall, British Welding Research Association

22.11.67

II*

Country house. 1711-13, much altered in the late 18th Century. Built for Maximilian Western, under the direction of Richard Humberstone, using a team of craftsmen which included the Cambridge mason Robert Grumbold. Exterior first painted c.1815 for Lord Chatham. Red brick, tuck pointed with gauged-brick dressings and with limestone details, painted with exception of south facade. Slated roofs; chimneys concealed. Three storeys with service basement. North facade of nine 'bays', with central five 'bays' slightly recessed and with giant pilastered quoins flanking end bays; continuous moulded cornice and plain parapet. Main entrance with recessed C20 glazed door and fanlight in round arch. Portico raised on stone steps with four Roman-Doric columns and entablature. Fixed-light window shaped to double-recessed round arch above; recessed hung sash windows in flat gauged-brick arches of fifteen, twelve and nine panes. Garden facade with five pedimented central 'bays', slightly advanced. Ground-floor windows and central entrance replaced with garden casements. Open verandah, a wooden trellis design with standards of three slender grouped shafts of eleven 'bays' bowed in plan to the centre 'bays' with a concave roof.

INTERIOR: The three south-facing rooms form part of the plan of the original house. North D-planned lobby, two storeys high with Doric columns carrying first-floor passage, central east-west corridor with access to east, west and south rooms with open string staircase to north west. Ceilings to lobby and staircase with enriched moulding enclosing oval panels, and enriched cornices to main rooms and corridor; late C19 Jacobean revival ceilings to two south rooms. Central room with Ionic columned recess to west and chimney piece with swags, urns and figures in Adam-style, has imported C17 oak panelling. Recessed buffet with panelled doors to cupboards in south-west room, north-west room has Corinthian columns at the south end and chimney piece
with foliated consoles and swags and figures in the surrounds. North-east room with C20 partitions retains an early C19 marble chimney piece with fluted pilasters. Ground floor windows with panelled shutters, and six-panelled doors with applied mouldings to each panel. Door architraves moulded with frieze and cornice enriched with urns swags and festoons. The south-west room has an inserted ceiling. The upper floors have been altered for student accommodation, and a concrete staircase built to the north-east.

The grounds were laid out by Humphry Repton c.1800. The late C18 and early C19 details are similar to those at Abington Lodge also the home of Mr Mortlock. The estate was owned by the Earls of Oxford till 1610; Mr Mortlock purchased the estate in 1779. The last Mortlock owner was transported for firing on his uncle, vicar of Little Abington, whom he believed had cheated him out of part of his inheritance. The house was let to the Earl of Chatham amongst others in the early C19.

Palmer, W.M. 'The Neighbourhood of Hildersham', 1924
R.C.H.M. Report 1951
V.C.H., Vol. VI, p
Pevsner. Buildings of England, p395

Listing NGR: TL5274148833

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17550190

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)