Heath Hall

Heath Hall is a country mansion on Heath Common, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire. Bought as Eshald House in 1709, it was extended and altered by the architect John CarrProlific architect who worked mainly in the North of England, (1723–1807). between 1754 and 1780. Built in local sandstone ashlarMasonry of squared and finely cut or worked stone, commonly used for the facing of a building., it is of two storeys with a basement and an attic. Its eleven-bay frontage has a three-bay central block with four attached Ionic columns and a pediment. The hall, flanked by matching pavilions, and entrance gate piers form the magnificent frontage at the top of Heath Common.

The hall is a Grade I listed building.

History

In 1709 John Smyth, a wealthy wool trader, bought Eshald House on Heath Common from Theophilus Shelton who had owned it since 1694. Smyth’s nephew commissioned the architect John Carr to reconstruct and enlarge the house, and the work took place between 1754 and 1780. Antony Salvin extended the hall for John George Smyth in 1837–1845.^[1][2] The hall was renamed after John Smyth’s son bought the old Heath Hall. Old Heath Hall was demolished in the early 1960s, after years of neglect and mining subsidence.^[3]

Structure

Eshald House was probably designed by Shelton and was used as the central block in Carr’s rebuilding. The enlarged hall had two storeys, a basement and an attic, and its eleven bays included canted bays with three arched windows either side of the remodelled front. Carr remodelled the original house front by adding four Ionic columns and a pediment, the tympanum is carved with an achievement of arms..^[1]

Inside the ground floor rooms and chimneypieces are decorated with fine RococoExceptionally ornate and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration. plasterwork, possibly by Joseph Rose, and the woodwork is by Daniel Shillito. Harman and Pevsner describe the drawing room as “one of Carr’s finest spaces” and Historic England as “unsurpassed” in any of the many houses Carr designed elsewhere.^[1][2]