Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 12 April 2023 to update the name and address, amend the description due to change of building use and to reformat the text to current standards.
NZ 22 NE
9/88 (inset)
WINDLESTONE
Windlestone Park
Windlestone Hall
(Formerly listed as Windlestone Hall Residential School, A 689, south side)
9/1/68
GV
II*
House, formerly County Council residential school closed 2006. Circa 1835 rebuilding, by Ignatius Bonomi, for Sir Robert Johnson Eden; Bart, of C16 house; said to incorporate part of rear wing rebuilt c.1750, Billiard room added second half C19. Ashlar sandstone said to have come from Gatherley Moor, North Riding; rear service wing rendered with ashlar dressings. Roofs thick light grey slates, not visible from front. Long U-plan.
Main range, facing east, two storeys, 3:1:3:2:3 bays, twelve in all, and one-storey two-bay billiard-room block breaking forward at right end. First seven bays treated symmetrically, with projecting balustraded smooth Doric colonnade, with triglyph frieze, on stylobate: wide central bay projects and is tetrastyle; paired columns in flanking bays. Aproned sashes behind colonnade, with three in central bay. Recessed eighth and ninth bays have colonnade continuing main building line, with frieze as at left, but no balustrade: steps up to double doors with long flanking sashes. Aproned first-floor sashes, with wide pilasters flanking window over central colonnade projections. Three right bays have similar windows on both floors, the upper on floor-level band continuing from cornice of colonnade. All sashes have fine glazing bars and plain reveals. Roof balustrade continues around returns, the left of eight bays, bays two and three, and seven and eight, projecting; statues in niches in first bay. Right return has large apse. Billiard room in similar style to main building with projecting square bay at left, and half-glazed door at right: roof balustrade with ball finials: high corniced wall at right to conceal pent extension on right return. Hipped roof.
Rear elevation of main block has steps up to half-glazed door under bracketed hood. Rear service wing, on long arm of U, has two-light windows in Tudor style.
Interior: small entrance hall with elaborate stucco ceiling decoration, in same style as that over main staircase, leads to long passage, which opens at south into full-height hall with two pairs of Ionic columns, finished in porphyry-like scagliola, in east towards garden and on north towards stair. These support classical frieze with low-relief scenes in style of Parthenon, with marbled panels filling upper walls: ceiling has two glazed domes on guilloche-moulded drums, and stucco coats of arms between the domes. Glazed partition on east: possibly this was intended to be the main entrance, with a change in an early stage of planning. On north, Imperial stair, with two slender diabolo balusters per tread and turned newels, supporting ramped handrail: richly-decorated panelled ceiling with initials 'RJE, WE AND RE'. Library opening from south of hall has veneered fascia over bookcases, shelves lost, with slender brass balustrade to balcony in front of upper cases: dummy books conceal entrance to upper level: C18-style marble chimneypiece. Most doors six-panelled, in panelled reveals, with architraves. Many original chimneypieces.
North apse contains cantilevered stair with cast-iron balustrade. Room to north-west of main hall, now kitchen, probably former drawing room, has change of floor level; coved ceiling has (probably C19) rococo-style stucco decoration: central swirling acanthus leaves; coving with baskets of flowers, thick trails of flowers, oak-leaf and other classical mouldings, shells and brackets: partly obscured by insertion of ducts from ovens. Billiard room has stucco decoration on coved ceiling in Jacobean style with strapwork panels. C17 panelling, transferred by Eden family from their house at West Auckland, now in Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle.
Sources: H.C. Surtees, History of the Parish of Coundon, (Mainsforth) 1926, p.10.
Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, K.G., P.C., M.C., Another World 1897-1917, 1976: and information from Mrs. J. Crosby concerning ceiling design signed by Bonomi, thus confirming the frequently-made but never supported assertion that he was the architect. H.C. Surtees thanks Lady Eden for help, and seems to have seen family papers, but gives no proof for the attribution he makes to Bonomi.
C20 rear addition not of interest.
Listing NGR: NZ2636128676
