Description

BISHOP AUCKLAND

NZ1726 FRONT STREET, West Auckland 634-1/9/185 (North side) 21/04/52 The Old Manor House Hotel (Formerly Listed as: WEST GREEN, FRONT STREET (N) West Auckland No.1 The Manor House)

GV I

Formerly known as: West Auckland Hall FRONT STREET West Auckland. Manor house, later brewery, now hotel. Late C16 and mid C17 with early C18 and C20 alterations. Said to be site of C15 manor house (Surtees 1924). MATERIALS: rubble with ashlar dressings and plinth. Roof of stone slates with stone chimneys, and on right wing rear section of pantiles with stone slates at eaves. PLAN: H-plan with square stair tower between rear arms. 2 storeys, 2:3:2 windows, the outer pairs in wings breaking forward. EXTERIOR: symmetrical front elevation has central early C18 nine-panel door in architrave with Corinthian pilasters supporting scrolled segmental broken pediment, with cartouche. C16 segmental-headed lights with moulded spandrels in mullion and transom 2-light windows flanking door, and similar mullioned windows above. Relieving arches over ground-floor windows. Wide 2-light sash over door with drip string extending over flanking 2-light mullion windows. Inner returns of wings have 3-light windows, mullion and transom on ground floor and mullioned above, some blocked. Front gables of wings have 3-light C16 windows in gable peaks and early C18 architraves to renewed sashes with fine glazing bars on ground and first floors. Gables have overlapping stone coping with roll-moulded finials. Large stone chimneys with offsets projecting from left return, from eaves at right return, and from inner walls of rear wings. Long left return has C16 and early C18 windows; right return has C18 sashes, and added extruded porch between front and rear sections of wing, the rear section recessed. INTERIOR has much high quality detail. Rear section of right wing formerly kitchen, now hotel bar, has rubble inner wall partly revealed to show stop-chamfered wide moulded stone fire surround, with rounded corners, under relieving arch. Within it a brick beehive bread oven on high square brick plinth, and to left of it a low, panelled cupboard. Ledged boarded door with wrought-iron sneck. Sloping stop chamfers to beams and ogee stops to joists. Lined recess beside inner door from passage from front entrance hall, may be draw bar slot, suggesting an earlier external wall has been enclosed by C16 building, or blocked access to recess to left of fire in bar. Front entrance hall has stucco ceiling decoration with moulded crossed beams, and fleur-de-lys motifs in panels between them. Close-string stair has first flight from front to back of hall, and then enters square rear stair tower and becomes dogleg stair. Carved newels throughout with modified pineapple finials, high grip handrail with laurel leaves carved along frieze and guilloche moulding on string. Balustrade richly carved with scrolled pierced foliage. Shallow risers. Top 2 flights have splat balusters and plain string. Ground-floor rooms have much panelling (except from left front, said to be in the Bowes Museum) of early C18 character, fielded and raised, with 2-panel doors in Eden Room in centre of right wing which has dentilled ceiling cornice and oval ceiling panel with large leaf pattern. `White room' has 6-panel doors, tapered fluted pilasters with jewelled base and egg and dart capitals, enriched panelling, bead moulding over foliage frieze, ceiling stucco panel with fleur-de-lys and crown. Broad ceiling beams throughout upper floors. Stair tower has wood and lath partition on top floor forming small room. Roof structure visible in attic rooms of wings, and in floored roof between them, of very high quality, with triple pegged collared trusses having raised king posts, side and ridge purlins, longitudinal ridge bracing, and carpenters' marks in sequence of present construction. Oak-pegged stone slates. Conyers Surtees shows that this manor house was the principal residence of the Eden family from the C16 until they moved to Windlestone. (Surtees H C: History of the Township of West Auckland: Mainsforth: 1924-).

Listing NGR: NZ1791826357

External Links

• Wikidata Q17529858

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Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)