Abbeystead House is a large country house to the east of the village of Abbeystead

Abbeystead

Abbeystead is a small, picturesque village located in the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in Lancashire, England. Abbeystead lies close to the Trough of Bowland but even in medieval times, was considered part of Wyresdale rather than within the domain of that powerful local...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, England. It has been designated by English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 as a Grade II listed building.

History

Abbeystead House was built in 1886 as a shooting lodge for the 4th Earl of Sefton

William Molyneux, 4th Earl of Sefton

William Philip Molyneux, 4th Earl of Sefton, KG was a British peer.Born Viscount Molyneux, he was the eldest son of Charles Molyneux, 3rd Earl of Sefton and his wife, Mary. He was educated at Eton College, Berks. In 1854, Molyneux became an ensign in the Grenadier Guards and inherited his father's...

. It was designed by the Chester

Chester

Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

 firm of architects Douglas & Fordham, who added gun and billiard rooms in 1894. In 1980 the Abbeystead Estate, totalling 18000 acres (72.8 km²) and including the house, was bought by a trust relating to the family of the Duke of Westminster

Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster

Major-General Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, , is the son of Robert George Grosvenor, 5th Duke of Westminster, and his wife Hon. Viola Maud Lyttelton. He is the owner of property company Grosvenor Group...

.

Architecture

The house is built in sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 rubble

Rubble

Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture. This word is closely connected in derivation with "rubbish", which was formerly also applied to what we now call "rubble". Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as brash...

 with slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

 roofs in Elizabethan

Elizabethan architecture

Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...

 style. Its plan is an L-shape, with south and east ranges partly enclosing a courtyard

Courtyard

A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....

. The south range forms the main block while the east range is the service wing which incorporates a four-storey castellated

Battlement

A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet , in which portions have been cut out at intervals to allow the discharge of arrows or other missiles. These cut-out portions form crenels...

 tower. To the east of the main house subsidiary buildings form a second courtyard. The south range has two storeys plus attics and is entered by a porch on its north side. The façade of the north (entrance) front is irregular, and consists of five bays

Bay (architecture)

A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

, three of which project forward and are surmounted by gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

s of different sizes with ball finial

Finial

The finial is an architectural device, typically carved in stone and employed decoratively to emphasize the apex of a gable or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure. Smaller finials can be used as a decorative ornament on the ends of curtain rods...

s. The front also includes mullion

Mullion

A mullion is a vertical structural element which divides adjacent window units. The primary purpose of the mullion is as a structural support to an arch or lintel above the window opening. Its secondary purpose may be as a rigid support to the glazing of the window...

ed and transomed

Transom (architectural)

In architecture, a transom is the term given to a transverse beam or bar in a frame, or to the crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it. Transom is also the customary U.S. word used for a transom light, the window over this crosspiece...

 windows, a dormer

Dormer

A dormer is a structural element of a building that protrudes from the plane of a sloping roof surface. Dormers are used, either in original construction or as later additions, to create usable space in the roof of a building by adding headroom and usually also by enabling addition of windows.Often...

, and a pair of round-headed arches in ground floor of the right bay. The outer doorway of the porch has a Tudor

Tudor style architecture

The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...

 arch with the Molyneux

Earl of Sefton

The title Earl of Sefton was created in the Peerage of Ireland in1771 for the 8th Viscount Molyneux. The Earls of Sefton held the subsidiary titles Viscount Molyneux, of Maryborough in the Queen's County , in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Sefton, of Croxteth in the County Palatine of Lancaster...

 arms

Coat of arms

A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 carved above; it is flanked by small single-storey turret

Turret

In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...

s.

The south (garden) front also has five bays, three of which project forward and two of these are canted

Cant (architecture)

Cant is the architectural term describing part, or segment, of a facade which is at an angle to another part of the same facade. The angle breaking the facade is less than a right angle thus enabling a canted facade to be viewed as, and remain, one composition.Canted facades are a typical of, but...

. The front again contains mullioned and transomed windows and each bay has a gable with a ball finial. Tall brick chimneys rise from the roofs. Internally, the entrance hall has two fireplaces with panelled

Panelling

Panelling is a wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials....

 overmantles

Fireplace mantel

Fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling...

; one of the panels carries a carving of the Molyneux arms. At the back of the room is a timber arcade

Arcade (architecture)

An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....

 and the staircase has barley-sugar baluster

Baluster

A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

s.

Douglas' biographer, Hubbard

Edward Hubbard

Edward Horton Hubbard was an English architectural historian who worked with Nikolaus Pevsner in compiling volumes of the Buildings of England...

, describes Abbeystead as the finest of Douglas' Elizabethan

Elizabethan architecture

Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...

 houses and one of the finest and largest he ever designed. Hubbard also suggested that Douglas' plan of a house with irregular gables and a tower grouped round a courtyard may have been inspired by nearby Lancashire medieval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 houses with pele towers

Peel tower

Peel towers are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, intended as watch towers where signal fires could be lit by the garrison to warn of approaching danger...

, such as Borwick Hall

Borwick Hall

Borwick Hall is a 16th century manor house at Borwick, Lancashire. It is a Grade I listed building and is now used as a residential outdoor education and conference centre by Lancashire County Council.-History:...

. However, as Hartwell and Pevsner

Nikolaus Pevsner

Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...

 point out, Douglas also designed towers for his houses in Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

 and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, so it may rather have been "rooted in his own style".

Associated buildings

At the same time that Abbeystead House was being built, Douglas and Fordham designed two lodges for the estate. Lancaster Lodge stands at the head of the drive leading to the house. This has an L-shaped plan and is "quietly Elizabethan" in style. It is a Grade II listed building. York Lodge stands 0.5 mile (0.80467 km) to the east on the road to Dunsop Bridge

Dunsop Bridge

Dunsop Bridge is a village within the Ribble Valley borough of Lancashire, England, situated north-west of Clitheroe, south-east of Lancaster and east of Skipton. It is in the civil parish of Bowland Forest High....

and is also listed Grade II. In 1891–92 the same architects designed stables and an adjoining pair of cottages for the house.