Description

BISHOP AUCKLAND

NZ1826 MANOR ROAD, St Helen Auckland
634-1/10/156 (North side)
21/04/52 St Helen Hall

GV I

House. Post 1622. For James Carr, extended c1735 for William
Carr, MP for Newcastle.
MATERIALS: C17 build incised render on rubble, with ashlar
dressings. Concrete roof tiles with stone gable copings. C18
build ashlar with rusticated basement. Roof graduated Lakeland
slate with ashlar chimneys.
PLAN: L plan, C18 Palladian wing breaking forward from right
end of C17 house. C17 house: originally with earlier
cruck-framed build at left, demolished before 1972.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, 3 windows. Label moulds over central
6-panel door and 3-light windows with chamfered stone
mullions, and casements with glazing bars. 3-light casements,
the central light opening, under label moulds in 3 gabled
dormers rising from eaves.
Roof has left end chimney. Gable copings rest on moulded
kneelers. C18 addition breaking forward at left has rear
elevation on this front, with 2 blind windows on piano nobile
floor band.
Mid C20 ground floor corridor addition with arch to
half-glazed door at left with one shaped stone bracket for
former doorhood. Small section of wall to left of C17 roof is
brick. Garden front: 2 storeys, 5 windows. Ashlar plinth to
sill level.
Basement has richly varied and intricately carved vermiculate
rustication, with wide-splayed voussoirs to central
half-glazed door and 6-pane ground floor sashes which slide
into slots above. Ashlar band below raised piano nobile floor
band supporting blind balustraded aprons, with square-section
balusters, to moulded sills of sashes in architraves with
bolection-moulded frieze and cornice. All windows have broad
glazing bars. Ashlar courses thinner at sill and lintel
levels. Dentilled eaves cornice. Steeply pitched hipped roof
oversailing eaves, with right end and rear chimneys rising
from eaves.
Left return from garden front faces road and has 3 blind
windows on each floor. Right return has tall round-headed
stair window over flat-roofed mid C20 extension.
INTERIOR: C17 house shows much C17 panelling, and 2 stone fire
surrounds with Tudor arches and ogee-section stepped moulding,
transferred here from West Auckland. Roof of this house
collared trusses with raised cruck principals, and 2 levels of
purlins. Carpenters' marks.
Palladian wing has ground-floor entrance passage and stair
well parallel to rear wall extending through 2 right bays.
Left ground floor room, with door from garden, has raised
fielded panelling with dado and cornice. Library and dining
room in ground floor also have original detail. Wide stair at
rear of right part, with moulded treads and shallow risers,
has ramped moulded handrail.
Piano nobile has drawing room at right. Principal room at left
is salon with 3 windows, proportions one and a half cubes with
rear wall brought forward into one plane, accommodating
chimney without internal or external projection.
Decoration of extraordinary richness includes enriched
skirting board, dado and panel mouldings, pedimented surports
with bolection frieze; richly carved painted wood chimney
piece with female terms and broken pediment. Stucco ceiling
decoration of rococo character, artist unknown but work
reminiscent of the York school. Probably original to the
building, since after Carr's death in 1741/2 entertaining was
less important, and if that is so it is very early for the
style. Rich classical cornice mouldings include banded laurel
leaves. Symbolic figures of eagles with snakes in their grasp,
and of monkeys, recur around edge of principal ceiling panel,
with classical masks and arrangements of grapes in
asymmetrical swagged corner panels from which intersecting
curves trail towards the centrepiece which has figure of Cupid
in ornate frame.
William Carr was MP for Newcastle upon Tyne and entertained
frequently at St Helen Hall.
(Surtees H C: History of the Parish and Township of St Helen
Auckland: Mainsforth: 1924-: PAGES 1-8; Whittaker N: The Old
Halls and Manor Houses of Durham: Newcastle upon Tyne: 1975-:
47-51).

Listing NGR: NZ1894626772

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17529918

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)