Winnington Hall

Winnington Hall is a former country house in Winnington, now a suburb of Northwich, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.^[1] The building is in effect two houses joined, an older modest timber-framed house, and a newer, more elegant, stone house.^[2]

History

Country house

The original timber-framed house was built in the late 16th or early 17th century for a member of the Warburton family of Warburton and Arley, Cheshire. Originally in three bays, it was extended by another two bays for Thomas Warburton, whose wife Anne was joint heir to the Penrhyn estate near Bangor in North Wales. A brick service wing was added to the north of the house in the early 18th century. Thomas' son, Hugh, had only one child, a daughter, Anne Susanna. In 1765 Anne Susanna married the other heir to the Penrhyn estate, Richard Pennant, who later became the 1st Baron Penrhyn. In 1775 Pennant commissioned Samuel Wyatt to design what became the larger stone extension to the house. In a possible attempt to harmonise the older part of the house with the stone extension, in the early 19th century the timber-framed wing was coated with roughcast and castellated. In 1809 the Winnington estate was sold to John Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley. Stanley's home, Alderley Hall, had burnt down 30 years previously, and his family were living in temporary accommodation on the Alderley estate. However Stanley spent much of his time in London, and the condition of the building deteriorated. In 1817 the Stanley family moved back to Alderley where a new hall was being built. Stanley's son, Edward, moved into the house in 1842, but left for Alderley Hall in 1850 after succeeding to the barony.^[2]

School

For some years the hall was used as a girls' finishing school under Miss Margaret Alexis Bell and Miss Mary Jane Bell, where Sir Charles Hallé visited to give recitals and John Ruskin gave lectures.^[3] Ruskin helped the school financially, and had his own room in the house, which became for him a "semi-permanent residence".^[4] He instructed the 35 girls on subjects such as the Bible, geology and art, supervised their music, and watched them play cricket.^[a] In 1863 Ruskin invited Edward Burne-Jones to the school, and together they devised a project to create a set of wall hangings based on characters from Chaucer's poem The Legend of Good Women. The figures were to be designed by Burne-Jones and embroidered by the girls in the school under the supervision of Georgiana, Burne-Jones' wife. Embroidery frames and wool were purchased, and work began on one of the figures. However the work proved to be too ambitious, and the project was abandoned. Later, during the 1870s, the school became bankrupt, and closed.^[5]

Brunner, Mond, and the chemical industry

In 1872 the estate and hall were bought by

The entrance porch leads into a room known as the Stone Hall. To the left of this is a room known as the Oak Room. To the right is the Billiard Room and beyond that is a series of rooms added around end of the 19th century. A passage leads from the Stone Hall past the staircase into Wyatt's stone wing. It leads into the Gallery, at the end of which is the Orangery. Parallel to these rooms and to the northwest are the Dining Room, with an apsed anteroom leading to the Octagon Room. To the northwest of these rooms are parts of the original oak wing, and newer additions, all acting as service rooms. The Stone Hall, with its low ceiling, was re-dressed by Wyatt in Neoclassical style. It forms a contrast with the spacious nature of the Gallery, which is in four vaulted bays. Each of these bays is lit by a glazed lunette, below which are oval medallions containing a depiction of a neoclassical figure, and a niche holding a black basalt vase. The Orangery has large windows with cast iron glazing bars. The Octagon contains a Neoclassical fireplace, a delicately decorated plaster ceiling, and a frieze of winged gryphons. The Dining Room has an apsidal end. On the first floor is a suite of rooms designed by Wyatt.^[2]

See also

• Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire West and Chester
• Listed buildings in Northwich

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Hartwell, Clare; Hyde, Matthew;
  ISBN 978-0-300-17043-6