Description

SE4805 HICKLETON HICKLETON HALL 12/64 Hickleton Hall with attached quadrant walls and walls extended 27.5.53 to enclose entrance-front garden having associated gate piers and 2 statues, also linking wall to gate pier at south-east corner of stable block (formerly listed as Hickleton Hall)

GV II*

Country house now Sue Ryder Home. 1745-48 by James Paine for Godfrey Wentworth; enlarged c1775 and altered 1857-60 (Colvin, p610). Limestone ashlar, graduated slate roofs. 7 x 5 bay, double-pile, main range with flanking pavilions linked by C19 additions, service wing set back on right; quadrant walls to all but rear-right corner, those to front extending to flank garden. Main range: 3 storeys with basements, 2:3:2 bays; single-storey, 3-bay end-pavilions linked across front by C19 corridors and entrance hall. Entrance hall, of sandstone ashlar, has plinth and sill band; 2 breaks forward to glazed door flanked by twin pilasters and by 16-pane sashes, set back, with twin pilasters on outside; corridors, set back, have sashes with glazing bars in architraves; continuous entablature. Taller pavilions; each set forward,have sashes, with glazing bars in architraves with consoled cornices, central sash with pediment; cornice with parapet. Main range 1st floor, sashes with glazing bars,floating cornices, central sash with architrave and segmental pediment. Unequally-hung 9-pane sashes to 2nd floor. Modillioned cornice with achievement of arms in tympanum of 3-bay pediment. Hipped roofs to pavilions and main range. Transverse, multiple-flue stacks set behind ridge and at right end. Rear: unaltered C18 facade as front: central doorcase with swept-shouldered architrave and consoled segmental pediment; plain architraves; no pediment. Semi-octagonal, single-storey projection on left has round-headed sashes with glazing bars in architraves, dentilled cornice. Principal facade of service wing set back on left: 2 storeys, 3:2:5:2 bays; unequally-hung 9-pane sashes to basement level, band beneath sashes with glazing bars on upper floor, dentilled cornice. Left return of main range: basement loggia with 5 segmental arches and balustrade.

Interior: entrance hall: Vitruvian-scrolled dado, contemporary fireplace, Doric colonnaded screen with detailed entablature. Dining room: marble sidewall fireplace has carved overmantel with floral drops, festoons and broken pediment with basket filled with fruit and flowers; enriched doorcases with acanthus friezes; coved ceiling with acanthus features. Semi-octagonal bay to rear right has marble fireplace with scene of cherubs at daybreak, excellent plaster ceiling in the manner of John Carr. Library: Corinthian screen, frieze and good plaster ceiling. Staircase to rear centre has C20 wrought-iron balustrade, Ionic columns to 1st landing, Corinthian columns to 2nd. Chapel in left pavilion: later panelling and reredos with Ionic columns and segmental pediment. cont.... Subsidiary features: ashlar quadrant walls to front have copings and terminate at finialled piers each with linked retaining wall surmounted by an C18 statue, that to left a Greek warrior, that to right a female figure with shield. Lower sections of early C20,coursed, rubble walling. have open-pedimented doorways with tripartite keystones and terminate at large gate piers with gadrooned plinths to ball finials, walls return and link to balustrade (not of special interest). An additional section of wall connects front-right garden wall with gate pier matching that linked to east end of Stable Block main facade (q.v.). Ashlar quadrant wall to rear left of main range links to large gate piers at south end of garden front terrace.

Home of Godfrey Wentworth (d1789), later passed to Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax and to his son Charles Lindley Wood. Sold in 1947-48; in present use since 1960-61.

H. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 1978, p610.

Listing NGR: SE4822105166

External Links

• Hickleton Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q15223853

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

• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)