Linton Court and Associated Garden Walls (Including That Part to the Rear of Weaver's Cottage), Settle, North Yorkshire

Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 20/07/2012

1622/10/18
13-SEP-88

SETTLE
DUKE STREET
(West side)
LINTON COURT AND ASSOCIATED GARDEN WALLS (INCLUDING THAT PART TO THE REAR OF WEAVER'S COTTAGE)
DUKE STREET
(West side)
4A & 4B

(Formerly listed as: DUKE STREET LINTON COURT)

House, circa 1780.

MATERIALS
Front (east): gritstone ashlar finished with diagonal furrowed tooling. Sides and rear are of coursed rubble that is lime rendered. Sandstone dressings throughout. Stone slate roof.

PLAN
Double pile of three bays and two-storeys. Central entrance hall leading through to central stair hall at the rear.

EXTERIOR
Front (east): Symmetrical elevation with projecting quoins and cill bands to both floors. To the centre there is a recessed Tuscan porch for the six panelled door, with outer pilasters and an inner pair of columns supporting a plain frieze and a moulded cornice. Flanking windows to both floors are tripartite with plain projecting surrounds and rounded mullions. The central lights are stepped up and have horned, nine-over-nine sashes, the narrower side lights being two by six fixed lights. The central window to the first floor is a nine-over-nine sash. Simply moulded modillions support the guttering which is in the form of a moulded cornice. The roof has plain verges and end ridge stacks.

Rear: Asymmetric elevation with the central, tall stair window rising above the garden door all being slightly off-set to the left (north). Between this and the windows of the southern bay there is a smaller window to each floor, these appearing to be C19 insertions. The stair window is round headed and has relatively thick glazing bars supporting small panes. It is probably original. The other principal windows are eight-over-eight hornless sashes with thin glazing bars (probably early C19 replacements); the small first floor window has a horned sash. All of the openings have plain projecting sandstone surrounds.

South gable: Near central door to the service corridor, protected by a porch formed by three projecting stone slabs. There is a small single window to each floor (including a central, attic window) all with sandstone surrounds.

North gable: A projecting drip course towards the centre suggests a blocked side entrance to the rear room. Attic window reduced in width, probably in the C19.

INTERIOR
The entrance and stair halls are divided by a broad basket arch. The floor, which runs through, is of Victorian encaustic tiles. The dog-legged staircase is late C18 with turned balusters supporting a composite, moulded handrail. All of the downstairs rooms retain window shutters and six panelled doors, some with original ironmongery. The doors to the front reception rooms may be C19 replacements. The front left (south) room has an ornate fireplace surround and mantle that is similar to C18 Adams fireplaces. It may thus be original, although the fireplace itself is a modern alteration. The ceiling is corniced, incorporating plastered ceiling beams into the design. The front right room is now a kitchen. This has a large inserted opening (now infilled) to the room to the rear, probably a Victorian alteration originally fitted with folding doors. The rear right room has a late C19 fireplace incorporating pictorial tiles. In the position of the possible blocked external doorway, there is a built-in dresser. To the rear left is the original kitchen, a stone flagged service corridor and access to a small, brick vaulted cellar.

The first floor retains six panelled doors and three cast iron fireplaces, two being late C19 round backed fireplaces, one being an C18 or early C19 hob grate.The roof structure is largely original with hewn timbers that are pegged. Trusses are A-frames supporting staggered purlins. Rafters are modern replacements.

SUBSIDUARY ITEMS
The front garden walls are ashlar, and ramp up to the house to frame the façade. To the left, on the street frontage, there is an archway to the drive. On this drive, adjacent to the doorway to the front garden, is a two step mounting block.
The drive serves a two-storey range of rubble stone outbuildings that backs directly onto 1-3 Commercial Courtyard to the south (1-3 Commercial Courtyard are not included in this designation). This range is shown on early maps as being divided into five units but it has been converted into two units (4a and 4b Duke Street). The range incorporated a coach house (now a garage) and a hay loft (indicated by the two round pitching openings). It probably also included at least one loose box although evidence for this has been obscured by altered openings. The range includes one hornless sash window which is likely to be original.

Opposite the range there is a rainwater tank formed from large stone slabs jointed with iron straps. This tank is fed from the house roof and carries an inscribed date of 1848.

To the north of the house there is a small, enclosed, cobbled yard. The doorway to this yard from the garden has a Classical sandstone doorcase. The wall to the rear garden is over 3m high. It is of coursed rubble with a simply dressed round topped coping. The original garden to Linton Court has been subdivided with a lower stone wall that is not of special interest. The original extent of the garden is still largely defined by the high stone walling. The north wall of the garden runs from the north side of the house, initially running along the rear (southern) wall of a building to the north, and then becoming a freestanding garden wall before abutting the south eastern corner of a stone barn. This barn then abuts the east side of Weavers Cottage, Kirkgate, so that the southern walls of the barn and Weavers Cottage form a continuation of the original garden boundary. The original western garden boundary runs south from the south-west corner of Weavers Cottage, returning east inline with the rear 4a Duke Street. The west wall has two inserted openings and the south wall has been partially replaced with a new building.

HISTORY
Linton Court was built in circa 1780, on what was then the southern edge of the town centre, on the east side of the Keighley to Kendal turnpike road. An elegant house, set back from the street frontage, it is an early example of a town house with a front garden, a fashionable approach which was not widely adopted until after the Napoleonic Wars. The 1:10560 Ordnance Survey map published 1851 clearly shows the house together with a large rear garden with its coach house and other outbuildings on the south side. However because of the scale of the map, the depiction of gardens walls is far less clear: the northern wall appearing to be interrupted and the western wall possibly being absent. The next edition of the map (the 1894 1:2500) clearly shows the full circuit of walls. The house appears to have undergone some minor alterations in the C19 with the subdivision of one of the upstairs bedrooms (including the insertion of a window to the rear), the creation of a large opening between two of the reception rooms and the blocking of a side entrance. These alterations may have been contemporary with the dated rainwater tank to the rear of the house (1848). These improvements may have also prompted the building of the high garden walls to provide security and privacy to Linton Court from the lower-class courtyard housing and cottages to the north.

SOURCES
Craven District Council, 2008, "Settle Conservation Area Appraisal"
Hall, L 2005 "Period House Fixtures and Fittings 1300-1900"

REASON FOR DESIGNATION
Linton Court is designated at grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architecture: The well designed Classical facade with its Tuscan porch, the frontage framed by flanking garden walls.
* Completeness: The house is well preserved both internally and externally, but also, unusual in an urban environment, it retains a wide range of associated structures including its range of ancillary buildings and smaller items such as the mounting block and stone slab water tank.
* Fashion: An early example of the fashion to set a town house back from the street frontage, using a small front garden to improve the architectural impact of the house.

External Links

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