Listed Building: Upton Hall (Quinton House School) (1039760)

Country house, now school. Mid C18 with late C15/early C16 origins. Alterations and additions of c.1809. Other late C19 alterations. Restored 1985. Red brick with some flared headers, ironstone dressings, slate and plain tile roofs, brick internal stacks. Complex plan. 3-storey, 11-window range. Central 8-panel door with painted pilastered stone surround with pediment. 12-pane sash windows to ground and first floors with stone sills and keyblocked stone lintels. 6-pane attic floor windows with similar sills and heads. Central bay breaks forward slightly. Ground and first floor windows either side flank round-arched niches with statues of Seasons of artificial stone probably C19. 2-window left end bay breaks forward. That to right extended forward 1809 by 3 bays. Stone plinth, first floor storey band, moulded stone cornice, moulded stone-coped parapet and raised stone quoins to angles. Projecting wing to right has rainwater heads with initials TS WS and dated 1809 to north. Parapet on this side has swept-up ends. Irregular kitchen wing to rear right. 3-bay, 2 storey and attic recessed right side elevation with back door and porch flanked by 12-pane sash windows, similar windows to first floor either side of a 24-pane sash, all with stone lintels and keyblocks. Hipped roof dormers with 2-light leaded windows. Left side elevation has C19 French windows and sash windows, all with cemented wood lintels. Rear elevation of main range has canted single-storey bay window with Gothick sashes, and similar sashes to ground and first floors in bricked-up openings of former stone mullion windows. Attic gables, that to left with quatrefoil window, that to right with leaded 1-light windows with moulded stone surrounds flanking stone end stack. Interior: Original late C15/early C16 4-bay hall roof survives above present hall ceiling. Moulded arch-braced collar trusses with 5-light ogee-arched divisions on collar and intermediate chamfered arch-braced collar trusses with side struts. 4 tiers of moulded wind-braced purlins, quatre-foil wind-bracing to top tier. 2 bay addition to service end with chamfered arch-braced collar trusses with side struts to principal rafters and 3 tiers of wind-braced purlins. 4-light gable window survives internally at other end with hollow-chamfered stone mullions partly broken away, arched heads with cut spandrels and hood mould. Cross-wing roof beyond has collar trusses and 2 tiers of wind-braced purlins and attic room with Tudor-arched stone fireplace with cut spandrels. Plaster-vaulted cross passage in position of original screens passage. Fine plasterwork by Guiseppe Artari in sitting room to right of passage and hall. Sitting room has plasterwork ceiling in two compartments and blank plaster frames to walls with shell apron swags and ornamental plasterwork drops either side of fireplace and window opposite. 2-storey hall has painted stone chimneypiece to centre of back wall with half-pilasters, pulvinated frieze with blank central tablet and broken segmental pediment framing plaster bust of Flora, flanked by plaster putti reclining on pediment and holding a sheaf of corn and a bunch of grapes to left and right respectively. 6-panel doors flank fireplace and have eared surrounds with pulvinated frieze and pediment. End walls have 3-bay blank round-arched arcades, the centre bays framing 6-panel double-leaf doors with cartouches above. Either side are plaster medallions with busts in low relief of Mercury and Diana (right) and Mars and Minerva (left). Niche opposite fireplace frames plaster life-size statue of Apollo with lyre, signed on left side of plinth JOSEPH ARTARI and inscribed on right side FE. AN. 1737. 6-panel double-leaf door above right end door with eared surround and wrought-iron balcony. Portraits, mostly of members of Samwell family, all oil on canvas and in architectural frames complete the decoration of the walls, including a large conversation piece over statue of Apollo with Sir Thomas Samwell, his son Thomas and 3 daughers. Compartmented plaster ceiling in style of Inigo Jones with central octagonal compartment and guilloche to divisions. 'Monks' room behind hall has Gothick doors with triple-shafted surrounds and similar triple shafts to veined marble chimneypiece. Coloured glass to upper lights of Gothick sashes with painted glass shields. Veined marble bolection-moulded fireplace surround in adjacent room with late C18 painted wood surround. Open well staircase from ground floor to attic with barley-sugar balusters. Fielded panelling to staff-room. High beamed ceiling to kitchen. (Buildings of England, Northants, 1973, p358)

Record last edited

May 26 2023 12:02PM