Description

NE 45 SW B1287

2/50 (South Side, Off)

SEAHAM HALL HOTEL

II

Country house, now a hotel. 1791-2 for Sir Ralph Milbanke; 1861 additions
by Lewis Vulliamy for Frances, Lady Londonderry. Incised rendered rubble
painted white. Welsh slate roofs. Rendered and pebble-dashed chimneys.
Classical style. Long 2-storey garden front: symmetrical 9-bay centre
with projecting bay at left; added flanking wings, 6 bays at left and 3 bays
at right. Continuous plinth and band between storeys painted black. Replaced
doors and mainly 6-and 12-pane sashes. 9-bay section: tall projecting
gabled centre bay with 2-storey canted bay window and round-headed light in
wood open-pedimented gable; flanking sections, each with a central square bay
window on ground floor; roof with coped gables. Bay at left has tripartite
window on ground floor and hipped roof behind parapet. Wing at left has
altered doorway and roof with coped left gable. Wing at right has end doors;
similar square bay window, with narrower projecting bay under hipped roof
above; eaves cornice and hipped main roof. Conjoined square-plan ridge
stacks. 2-storey, 9-bay block on centre rear. Entrance front : projecting
3-bay centre with 6-panel double door behind tetrastyle Tuscan portico; band,
sunk panels and string between storeys; 12-pane sashes and C20 casements except
for enlongated sashes on ground floor right; eaves cornice and low-pitched
hipped roof with ridge stacks. Flanking irregular 2-storey ranges with
scattered sashes and hipped roofs. Interior much altered. Original upstairs
Drawing Room, in which Lord Byron was married, retains marble chimney-piece,
6-panel doors in architraves and enriched cornice. Other rooms by Vulliamy
include: Entrance Hall with recessed round-arched wall panels; large
Staircase Hall has cantilevered staircase and landing rails with ornamental
cast-iron balusters, round corridor archways, modillion cornice and glazed
ceiling; Dining Boom and Drawing Room with moulded skirtings, dado rails, 6-panel
doors and enriched cornices; Drawing Room retains wood chimney-piece with
barley-sugar columns. Historical note: in the upstairs Drawing Room, on 2nd
January 1815, Lord Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke; "The Siege of Corinth"
and part of "The Hebrew Melodies" were written at Seaham Hall. (H.L. Robson,
"Byron, the I.iilbankes and Seaham Village", Antiquities of Sunderland,
Vol. XXV, 1970-73).

Listing NGR: NZ4206350560

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Seaham Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7440478

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

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)