Listed Building: Thenford House (7/226)

Country House. Built c.1761-5 for Michael Woodhull. Ironstone ashlar, limestone dressings, stone slate roof, stone stacks. Double pile plan with detached wings linked to centre by short walls screening service courtyards. Principal block: 2 storeys, attic and basement, 7 bays. Three central bays project under pediment, string course at first floor level, angles emphasised by chamfered quoins. Entrance in centre, approached by steps with stone balustrade, has doorcase with Tuscan columns, metope frieze with pediment and 8-panel double doors. All windows 12-pane sashes. Ground floor windows have moulded stone frames, 3 central windows on first floor have bracketed pediments and blind balustrading beneath the sills. Windows in outer bays have straight entablatures on brackets. Bracketed cornice. Rococo cartouche in pediment surmounted by Woodhull crest. 4 flat headed dormers with sashes. Octagonal cupola in centre between two hipped roofs. Side walls have shaped gables with stack at apex. Side wings, former kitchen and laundry, each 2 storeys, 8 bays with pediment, flanked by one-storey outer bays with lean-to roofs forming half pediment. Central sash window flanked by 8-pane sashes in plain frames and 12-pane sash windows in outer bays. Smaller sash windows on first floor. Trompe d'oeil roundels in pediments. 4 sash windows in left wing also trompe d'oeil. Stone mullioned windows at rear. Service wings flanked on either side by walls with 8 bays of blind arcading, the inner walls linking with the principal block. Rear elevation has 2 storey canted bay window at each end and flanking red brick walls screening service courtyards. Interior: Hall and Saloon on middle axis. Hall has stone fireplace with double volutes and entablature with modillion cornice. Similar modillion cornice to ceiling. Saloon on south front has carved wooden fireplace with frieze of flowers and tablet of rocaille work. Ceiling has frieze of acanthus scrolls. Doorways have moulded frames with friezes of leaves and flowers and 6-panel doors. 3 windows in wall opposite fireplace have carved frames with consoles. Drawing Room has carved wooden fireplace with crossed torch and quiver of arrows and ceiling has frieze of scrolls and flowers. Dining Room has C19 plasterwork and C18 finely carved wooden fireplace with frieze of musical instruments and relief of allegorical figures seated on clouds. Open-well staircase to right of Hall has 2 turned balusters to a tread and carved tread ends. At foot of staircase is basement with a Roman tessellated pavement removed from a site north east of village. Main bedroom has carved wooden fireplace, ceiling with border of rococo scrolls and flowers, and doorcases with Chinese fretwork friezes. Other bedrooms have enriched doorcases. Re-used C17 panelling in attic rooms. Park with lake landscaped in C18. No architect is recorded for Thenford House. Some of the features are more typical of late C17 work and it is thought that may have been designed by Michael Woodhull assisted by a local architect. The old manor house stood near the church. Michael Woodhull succeeded to the property in 1754 at the age of 14. He became well known as a collector of early printed books and published a volume of poems. (A. Oswald, Thenford House, Country Life, Vol.100, 1946, p.624 and p.670, Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.425).

Record last edited

Sep 26 2014 3:12PM