Description

SE 3519 and SE 3520 WARMFIELD-CUM-HEATH HEATH COMMON
(west side)

6/90 Heath House (formerly
14.2.52 listed as "Heath Old Hall"

GV II*

Large country house. Mid C17 refenestrated and with addition forming a new
front c1744. By James Paine for the Hopkinson family. Ashlar front, hammer-
dressed stone to rear, Welsh blue-slate and lead flat roof. Palladian Villa
style. 2 1/2 storeys with cellars. 5-bay symmetrical facade. Rusticated
basement; plinth, 1st-floor band and window-head cornice. Central 3 bays have
pediment carried on 3/4-attached giant Ionic columns and 1/4 pilasters; the wider
flanking bays terminate with coupled pilasters. Basement: central semicircular-
arched doorway, bays either side have rectangular flat-arched windows, 1st bay
altered mid C19 with inserted 2-light bay window, niches below corner pilasters.
Piano nobile: central window has segmental pediment on consoles those to bays
2 and 4 have plain heads with same above to attic; those to bays 1 and 5 have
shouldered architraves, consoles and triangular pediments, with a window
with architrave above. Entablature, cornice, blocking course. Hipped roof.
Rear, earlier house: 3-cell hall with projecting crosswings. Windows altered
to sashes, 2 coped gables, that to right has large external stack. Returns of
C18 house in same style as front, though simple. Left-hand return, of earlier
house, has 3 bays of sash windows with plain-stone surrounds and external lateral
stack between 2nd and 3rd bays. Other lateral stack to right-hand return. Two
other concealed stacks to north and south of stair-well.

Interior: much C19 decoration to ground floor: central door opens into square
entrance hall with stilted-arched central doorway and doorways either side with
architraves, dentil cornice. Set behind is top-lit stair-hall with stone
cantilevered open-well stair with C19 decorative cast-iron balusters; doorway
leads off to the left to dog-leg service-stair; doorway to right to large room
with segmental-arched recess in which is doorway with architrave with niches
either side, richly-moulded cornice. The original house to rear provided the
service rooms and 3 rooms have stop-chamfered beamed ceilings. The 1st floor
of the C18 house has the principal apartments: lofty well-proportioned rooms
with fluted architraves, 6-panel doors, dado-rails, skirtings, panelled window
surrounds and casement-moulded cornices. The rear rooms have panelled dados.
Access to the 2nd floor is by means of the service stair only. The low rooms on
this floor were bedrooms and retain original C18 fittings, moulded dados, panelled
doors, shutters, window seats, and chimneypieces enriched with later Georgian
paper-mache decoration.

Peter Leach has noted the significance of Heath House as being James Paine's first
fully-unaided commission on record. Marcus Binney considers Heath House as Paine's
second individual work after Serlby Hall (Nottinghamshire) c1740 and shows it to
have great significance as the successful prototype facade Paine used again in
Northumberland shortly after for Belford Hall and the south front of Gosforth Park.
Heath House symbolises in every way the flowering C18 quality of the village, the
extension and improvement of older buildings and the most expert utilisation of
local raised quality stone. The house is of national importance, both historically
and architecturally. Heath House appears in the 1st volume of the architect's own
work: J. Paine, Plans, Elevations and Sections of Noblemen and Gentlemen's Houses,
(1761) pl.LXI and LXII (Republished Gregg Press 1967). P. Leach, public lecture
to York Georgian Society Feb. 23 1974. Paine is expertly discussed in 3 Country
Life articles: M. Binney, "The Villas of James Paine, I, II and III", Country Life
Feb. 20 1969, Feb. 27 1969, March 6 1969 more esp. pp406f. I. Hall, Heath (booklet)
D. Linstrum, West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture (1978) p69. N. Pevsner,
Yorkshire West Riding, (1974) p259.

Listing NGR: SE3537820141

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17550199

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)