Description

WESTON WESTON PARK
SE 14 NE
10/98 Banqueting House
approximately 50 metres
east of Weston Hall
22.11.66 (formerly listed as Banqueting
House at Weston Hall)
GV I

Banqueting House. Late C16 - early C17. For Sir Mauger Vavasour and his
wife Joan Savile. Ashlar and gritstone rubble with alternate quoins.
Graduated stone slate roofs. A 3-storey, l-bay tower built on sloping
ground with canted bay on south side and a rear projecting stair turret
surmounted by a gazebo. Plinth. Recessed and ovolo-moulded windows
throughout. South face: a 6-panel iron-studded door in a shallow
triangular-headed surround with cornice. First floor: 5-light mullion and
transom bay window with moulded sill and cornice terminated by shallow
consoles decorated with 3 balls, square sundial over. Second floor: similar
window with continuous dripmould flanked by roundels containing reliefs of
the Vavasour cock (left) and the Savile owl. Left return: set back to left
- flight of stone steps up to the studded 3-board door to the stair turret
with moulded triangular-headed doorway; right, at ground-floor level:
2 round-arched recesses with projecting moulded sills and deeply fluted
heads containing C18 gadrooned urns with leaf and swag motifs, stems and
bases missing. First floor: 4-light mullion-and-transom window, with
cornice, projecting over consoles decorated as front. Second floor: a
similar window with paired plaques below the sill containing coats of arms,
and flanking roundels as front. Right return, ground floor: two 2-light
windows; first floor: a 4-light mullion and transom with details as left
return over and a similar window above. A lead down-pipe with brackets
having cockerels in relief to right. Set back to right: the stair turret
has a narrow single-light window to ground floor. Rear: the projecting
staircase tower has a single-light recessed ovolo-moulded window lighting
the lowest stage which is at first-floor level. To left - rear entrance to
ground floor has a board door in quoined surround. Front and sides have
parapets pierced to centre with paired double-vase balusters flanked by
shields, central panels to sides blocked by stone infill of later pitched
roof; moulded coping stones over surmounted by cresting composed of central
lozenge and C-scrolls to centre flanked by open semicircles with ball
finials. Corner chimneys with plinth and cornices to south side. Board
door with shallow triangular-headed lintel to south side of staircase tower
gives access to roof. Similar door to east side of gazebo reached by flight
of cantilevered steps from roof of front bay. Gazebo has 5-light mullion-
and transom window filling full width of each side, above eaves cornice and
shallow pyramidal roof with elaborate weather-vane. Interior: the stair
turret, gazebo and first and second floors of the the building are
plastered, whitewashed and painted in imitation of ashlar. The ground floor
of the main front is unheated; a plain opening gives access to the base of
the stair turret. An arched cavity on the west wall is blocked by rubble.
First and second floors: entered from the door to the stair turret (west
side), a spiral stone stair gives access to the 2 principal rooms, each with
Tudor-arched corner fireplace with decorated spandrels; the upper floor is
plastered and the roof is supported by queen-strut trusses. The banqueting
house is linked to the Hall by a sloping lawn with a garden to the north; no
certain link with the house is known, but the rubble-filled alcove in the
base of the stair turret suggests a tunnel below the embankment leading
towards the Hall. A copy of a drawing made c1720 in the possession of the
owner shows the banqueting house in the north-east corner of a walled
enclosure to the east of the Hall. The original glazing, possibly by
Barnard Dinninghof and decorated with coats of arms, was removed in the
early C19. Country Life, Nov 13 1958, p 1115; David Hey, Buildings of
Britain 1550-1750, Yorkshire, 1981, p33.

Listing NGR: SE1786246737

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17538199

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

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)