Description

NIDD TOWN STREET
SE 36 SW (east side, off)

2/52 Nidd Hall

GV II

Country house. Probably 1825 for Benjamin Rawson, greatly enlarged and
remodelled 1890-93 in Classical style for Henry Butler, heir to the 13th
Viscount Mountgarret. Coursed squared gritstone and ashlar, grey slate
roofs. 3 storeys and 9 x 8 bays, the central 3 bays on the west side
reduced to 2 storeys. West (entrance) front: 3-bay block to right has
central 6-panel double doors with wrought-iron fanlight under a portico with
Ionic columns in antis, cornice and entablature with open-fret key pattern.
Above the entrance door is a large window with consoled cornice flanked by
rusticated pilaster strips supporting a cornice surmounted by the carved
stone arms of the Viscounts Mountgarret. Large 4-pane or 15-pane sash
windows throughout, those to earlier house in plain surrounds. Deep eaves
cornice and parapet with balustrade and panelled piers topped by urns which
continues around the entire building. Hipped roofs flanked by multi-flue
corniced chimneys. East (garden) side: a long facade with central
semicircular 2-storey bay window which has the date 1893 carved on the
parapet. Flanking 3-storey canted bays, that to left has sash windows with
glazing bars in plain surrounds to ground floor, this and the smoother pinker
stonework suggests work of c1825. Right return (south): the left 3 bays are
additional; of the 5 bays to right, the central 3 bays project slightly and
there is a central doorway with architrave and narrow consoles, now a
window. This probably forms the original c1825 main front. Interior:
principal rooms including outer and inner entrance hall, morning room,
dining room, staircase and landing are richly decorated with plasterwork to
walls and ceilings in mid-late C19 classical manner. The inner (staircase)
hall has paired Ionic columns, an elaborate wrought-iron balustrade and
large marble fireplace with masks and therms. A corridor extending
northwards from this hall leads to the dining room and billiard room on the
east side of the house and to the kitchen and service rooms on the north and
west. The rooms in the south-east corner have the proportion of early C19
classical buildings but one dividing wall has been removed and the
fireplaces remodelled. Nidd Hall was the home of the Dacre and Trappes
families until 1825 when Francis Trappes sold the estate to Benjamin Rawson,
Lord of the manor of Bradford. This is the most likely date for the
earliest remaining part of the house. His daughter Elizabeth left the house
to her grandnephew, Henry Butler when she died in 1890. On inheriting the
wealth of the Rawson family the 14th Viscount Mountgarret extended the
building and embellished it with the arms and the date 1893. It has 54
bedrooms. It was sold by the 16th Viscount Mountgarret in c1970.
H Speight, Upper Nidderdale, 1906, p 125.

Listing NGR: SE3019760774

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Nidd Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q13529285

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
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)