| Description | Heath Hall, Warmfield cum Heath. High status country house built c.1709 and altered 1754 1780 by John Carr
'Large country house. c1709 extended and altered 1754 1780 by John Carr for John Smyth; the wings built up, billiard room and south porch added c.1834 by Salvin. Ashlar, lead roof. 2 1/2 storeys with basement and cellars. 11 bay symmetrical facade. 3 bay central block, the original house, has 4 attached giant Ionic columns and a pediment, the tympanum carved with an achievement of arms. Porch with consoles and open pediment. Central 5 bays have windows with eared architraves and cornices. Outer 3 bays are canted and have swept shouldered architraves, consoles and cornices with plainer architraves above, and balustraded parapets. Attic storey has balustraded parapet carried across the facade and pierced by windows with architraves. 2 stacks to roof, 2 end stacks to left, one end stack to right. Rear: similarly fenestrated, central 3 bays break forward, lacking columns, and have raised quoins, central doorway with consoles and cornice and windows in raised architraves, those to 1st floor eared. Left hand return: 4 bays; 2 bays of blind windows; attached is single storey flat roofed billiard room (now kitchen).
Interior: Entrance hall: diamond set flags; 4 doorways with architraves; fireplace with eared surround decorated with egg and dart moulding; cornice with guttae. To left, Dining room: beautiful balanced room with apsidal end, round headed windows with eared architraves, richly decorated cornice, panelled dado, walls with applied carved mouldings, 2 doorways, fireplace with Greek key ornament and carved surround. To right, Stair hall: open well wooden stair slung on iron girders has 3 barley sugar twist balusters to each riser, wreathed and ramped handrail, Rococo carved brackets to tread ends. 1st floor band decorated with modified Greek key ornament interspersed with foliage. Modillioned ceiling cornice. Archway on consoles to Saloon: a long well proportioned room with apsidal ends and 3 bays of arches with fireplace facing doorway illustrated and authoritively discussed by I. Hall (p16 18). The walls and ceiling decorated with fine Rococo plasterwork, thought to be by Joseph Rose (the elder) and Thomas Perritt, the woodwork by Daniel Shillito, and is unsurpassed in the many houses Carr did (Linstrum, p75). Library: c1778 80, the decoration influenced by Adam after Carr's work at Harewood House; a long rectangular room, marble fireplace flanked by doors with carved architraves; ceiling cornice decorated with anthemion. Study: circular room with curved fittings and door with architrave, pulvinated frieze and cornice; stone fireplace with false keystone. 1st floor has other finely decorated rooms particularly the Saloon Chamber: apsidal bay with eared architraves to 3 windows, carved dado, 3 doorways with good carved bolection moulded friezes. One room retains Queen Anne decoration from 1709 house: large raised panelling, bolection moulded fireplace and good doorway. Dog leg back stair, possibly reused from 1709 house, has turned balusters and leads to attic with a range of 12 rooms leading off a central corridor dating from Salvin's alterations for which he was paid £6,500 in 1834.
Heath Hall, with its pavilions to left and right of the house, forms, with the entrance gate piers, a magnificent composition at the top of Heath Common. Historically the house is extremely interesting as a highly successful C18 enlargement and remodelling by John Carr and stands as one of his finest houses.
(Hall, I. 1979. 'Samuel Bucks Yorkshire Sketch Book'. Pages142 143: Linstrum, D. 1978. 'West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture'. Pages 72 75: Pevsner, N and Radcliffe, E. 1967. 'The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The West Riding Date: 1967 Journal Title: The Buildings of England'. Page 259)'. |