Building record 3112/1/1 - Knuston Hall (Formerly Hill House)

Country house and outbuildings, now residential College of Adult Education. C17, C18 and C19, with C18-C20 alterations. The C18 work was for Benjamin Kidney and that after 1865 for Sir Richard Arkwright.

{2} Country house and outbuildings, now residential College of Adult Education.
C17, C18 and C19, with C18-C20 alterations. The C18 work was for Benjamin Kidney and that after 1865 for Sir Richard Arkwright.
Coursed stone rubble with stone dressings and some ashlar in the earlier parts. The part added after 1865 is of ashlar. The roofs are of slate behind low parapets and there are various stone stacks. There is some plain tiling on outbuildings.
Two and three storeys. The house is on an extensive plan of mainly two large adjoining blocks, that to left with the main entrance dates from after 1865 and that to right is probably mid C17 (the survival of banded stonework and an early C18 double sash with thick glazing bars in a wide C17 proportioned window in a first floor corridor). This square block was much altered late C18 and then again mid C19. To the rear is another wing of probably mid C17 date, also altered C18 and C19. Extending to left, north, is an extensive series of C18 and C19 outbuildings partly around a large yard.
The entrance block is in Jacobean style and has large shaped gable and stone mullion and transom windows and a projecting entrance porch. The block to right has paired windows with C19 stone frames to both west and south, and two large C19 canted stone bays to west. The uniform pale stone west front is probably an C18 refacing because it differs from the ironstone banded lower two storeys of the south and east fronts. The lower two-storey rear wing has multi-paned sashes and a two-storey canted bay. Although the core of this wing is probably C17 the front is again uniformly pale stone and was probably added C18, for the stonework overlaps the plinth of the main block where the two meet. Projecting further east is another two-storey brick range which then becomes a garden wall.
Extending from the north front is the extensive series of outbuildings, now partly subsidiary college accommodation. The two-storey range nearest to the house has an C18 four bay front with a two bay central breakforward under a pediment in which is a reset datestone of 1666 (possibly the date of the C17 parts of the house). Adjoining to the north of this, and of less significance, are a former scullery and laundry, a single-storey building much altered, and a former stable block, which is roofless.
From this range extend further ranges on three sides of a large yard. To the east is a large, two-storey, three-bay, former coach house with a stone front and pediment, containing a blind roundel, and three arched entrances. On each side of the coach house are single-storey ranges in stone with openings dressed in red brick. To the far north are C18 brick ranges formerly used as livestock houses and pens. To the south are stone buildings used in the early C19 as an aviary and dovecote.
The square block to the right has later C18 elaborate plasterwork ceilings in the main ground floor rooms and roundels with Classical heads in relief in the present bar. The former dining room has C17 panelling brought in probably C19. C18 plaster ceiling also in the first floor lobby, which would originally have been the ceiling of the small staircase hall. The present dining room in the rear wing which was the kitchen in the early C19 (and probably long before) has a large open fireplace. The c1865 range has a Neo-Georgian cornice in the entrance hall and a stair case with ramped handrail and turned balusters.
In the early C16 Knuston was owned by the Brudenell family, but the estate was sold to the Page family in 1542. The Hearth Tax records of 1670 suggest the house was already substantial since it had eight hearths and the datestone 1666 reset in an outbuilding range may be the date of a major rebuilding which was probably the present square main block and the rear wing for services. It had been thought that this rear wing (the current dining room) was the only surviving element of this house, which was then known as Hill House. As a result of the Enclosures Act in 1769 the grounds were laid out as parkland and in around 1775 Benjamin Kidney, a London merchant and High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, spent c £10,000 on the house. In 1791 Knuston Hall was sold to Joseph Gulston but, in the half century or so after this, the house was let or leased. In 1865 the estate was bought by Robert Arkwright, great grandson of Sir Richard Arkwright, the renowned textile entrepreneur. Robert made considerable additions to the house and also alterations to the existing structure. After Robert’s death in 18888 the house was occupied by caretakers or tenants until the Hall was sold in 1920. Northamptonshire County Council bought the Hall in 1949 and it continues in use as a residential College of Adult Education.
A survey drawing made by the well-known architect JB Papworth, probably c.1811 for Thomas Lane who seems to have been the then tenant, gives a very good idea of the hall at that time showing both the configuration and use of the rooms. It is almost certainly a drawing made on the spot, whilst the architect toured the house and outbuildings, and may have been a preliminary to possible alterations.
This drawing and the evidence of the surviving structure has permitted a suggested sequence for the building history of the house. It has not been possible to be precise on any changes Papworth may himself have made because of the major ones carried out later by the Arkwrights, but the present state of the square block which was the main house in the plan is probably the result of works in the 1860s. Nevertheless, this block still retains rich plasterwork almost certainly of the 1770s in the long room (formerly the entrance hall and the drawing room), and also in the panelled room (formerly the dining room), as well as in the room which is now the bar. This would appear to be part of the costly work carried out by Benjamin Kidney. The large block added on by Arkwright is fashionably Jacobean but the interior of the new entrance and staircase hall has a Neo-Georgian cornice echoing the C18 work in the adjacent square block and is the same as that in the long corridor.
The works carried out in the square block for Arkwright appear to have consisted of opening up this new corridor through the house on the ground and first floors and involved burrowing through a huge stack shown in the survey drawing and replacing the small staircase with a lobby on each floor. The bedrooms were also subdivided, a process which has continued more recently with the creation of en-suite bathrooms. The cornice in these corridors and in the lobbies is the same as in the new entrance hall but original plasterwork survives in the first floor lobby, on a scale too large to have been designed to the viewed, as is now possible, close-to, but completely appropriate when seen looking up from the ground floor below, as originally intended. Part of the C19 work involved the removal of the wall between the original entrance hall and dining room and the making good of the wall mouldings as well as the removal of the drawing room fireplace. In the present panelled room, formerly the dining room, the panelling was probably brought in at this time as it dates from the C17 and was clearly not made for the room. However, the fireplace is mid C18, possibly with some alterations, and may be part of the 1770s work. The ceiling is mainly C18 plasterwork, but the lowest coved cornice moulding in each of the compartments could be late C17 and it is possible that there were some mid C19 additions as well. In the present bar, which was the lobby in the early C19, there are C18 plaster roundels with relief profiles of Classical heads. This room was altered in the mid C19 when part became the beginning of the corridor and a further roundel was added to the decoration in a different style. Some further swags were probably also added.

{4} In the early C16 Knuston was owned by the Brudenell family, but the estate was sold to the Page family in 1542. The Hearth Tax records of 1670 suggest the house was already substantial since it had eight hearths and the datestone 1666 reset in an outbuilding range may be the date of a major rebuilding which was probably the present square main block and the rear wing for services. It had been thought that this rear wing (the current dining room) was the only surviving element of this house, which was then known as Hill House. As a result of the Enclosures Act in 1769 the grounds were laid out as parkland and in around 1775 Benjamin Kidney, a London merchant and High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, spent c £10,000 on the house. In 1791 Knuston Hall was sold to Joseph Gulston but, in the half century or so after this, the house was let or leased. In 1865 the estate was bought by Robert Arkwright, great grandson of Sir Richard Arkwright, the renowned textile entrepreneur. Robert made considerable additions to the house and also alterations to the existing structure. After Robert’s death in 18888 the house was occupied by caretakers or tenants until the Hall was sold in 1920. Northamptonshire County Council bought the Hall in 1949 and it continues in use as a residential College of Adult Education.

{5} In 1775 the Knuston estate was sold to Benjamin Kidney who mortgaged it in 1780 and 1786 and then sold it in 1791 to Joseph Culstone.

{6} Late 17th century country house. May now be demolished.

{7} The house is still is still extant. The parkland surrounding the house was used during the Second World War [HER 3112/2] and to the north and north west of the house is the earthworks of the deserted settlement of Knuston [HER 3112].

To the south are earthwork banks (at SP 93838 66031) which are visible on lidar imagery and were mapped as part of the Bedford Borough NMP project. They appear to relate to later post medieval landscaping of the parkland.

<1> DCMS, 2008, Listing Schedule, (checked) (Schedule). SNN106032.

<2> DCMS, 2008, Listing Schedule, (checked) (Schedule). SNN106032.

<3> Papworth J.B., 1811, RIBA Drawings Collection, (unchecked) (Archive). SNN106033.

<4> History of Knuston Hall, (unchecked) (Website). SNN106034.

<5> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1979, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.97 site 9 (checked) (Series). SNN77380.

<6> Historic England, Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments- Building File, National Buildings Record File No. 61908 (Oral Report). SNN71057.

<7> Environment Agency, LIDAR Composite DTM - 1m, LIDAR SP9366 Environment Agency 1M DTM 01 Oct 2014 - 31 May 2017 (Digital Plots). SNN111710.

<8> Historic England, Undated, KNUSTON HALL, IRCHESTER, BF061908 (Archive). SNN116278.

<9> Bedford Borough Council HER, Undated, Bedford Borough NMP, MD003015 (Archive). SNN113023.

Record last edited

Apr 5 2024 10:23AM