Description

ROTHLEY

SK 51 SE WESTFIELD LANE (South Side)

6/127
9.7.51 Rothley Court Hotel and The
Chapel

GV I

Hotel, formerly mansion, and attached chapel. C13, C17/C18 (stack dated 1742)
and 1895. Garden front and wing by John Ely, Manchester, 1894/5. Granite
rubble stone, with small part red brick, with stone dressings, stone and brick
and stone cornice and parapet in part, and Swithland slate roof with brick
ridge and side stacks. Hotel entrance front has a projecting gable either
end, that to right with stone buttresses. 2½ storeys of 11 6/6 sash windows.
Five 2-light dormers, the central with rounded gable. 2-light casement in
left gable attic. Probably C19 central stone porch in Renaissance style with
rounded arch, pilasters, entablature and battlements. Part-glazed door inside.
Garden front to left has projecting stack dated 1742, and the 1894/5 wing mullion
and transom windows with leaded lights, and with a two storey canted bay to
left and loggia with two bay arcade to right. Rear has picturesque gables
with sashes and attic casements. Inside are C18 oak staircase and C17 and C18
panelling, some with bolection moulding. Doorways with stone pointed arches
in rooms next to Chapel. The Chapel, to right of entrance front, restored
1896, has E window facing. Single nave with two storey S corridor linking
house. Stepped buttresses and angle buttresses. Tall lancets with cusped
heads, hood moulds and label stops. One to W and three either side to N and
S. Large 3-light C15 E window, with shaft either side to half way up. Inside,
the lancets have a roll-moulding round frame and E window a moulded arch and
shafts to sides. Piscina with cusped head and shaft either side. Roll-moulded
sill band in part. On S wall fragment of painting with writing in medieval
English script. Restored four-bay tie beam truss double-purlin roof with double
collars, curved braces and waved wind braces. Round vase font possibly C13,
a small marble cartouche of the Babington arms of possibly C17 and three C18
Babington hatchments. S doorway has arch with hollow chamfer and the corridor/porch
a quadrapartite rib vault. The restored doorway, facing E between Hotel and
Chapel has a many-moulded arch with shaft either side. This mansion was known
till recently as Rothley Temple. It was a Preceptory of the Knights Templar,
to whom the manor was given by Henry III. After their suppression it was given
to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. At the Dissolution it
became a private house and the seat of the Babington family. Lord Macaulay
was born here on 25th October, 1800. Pevsner.

Listing NGR: SK5767912300

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Rothley Court at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7370488

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: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)