Building record 14928/4 - Dorfold Hall, Lodge and Entrance Gates

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 1136286 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Park lodge and gates 1862, for Wilbraham Spencer Tollemache (Hall leaflet). Red brick with stone dressing and tile roof, in Jacobean style. Single storey, 2-bay facade (north) and 2-bay entrance front (west). Projecting weathered stone plinth, flush stone quoins, stone dressed mullion windows, surmounted by the Tollemache diamond and cross emblem, and canted bays with projecting cornices and stone roofs. The entrance is a door of three vertical panels in an inset porch with external pilasters, and archivolt with springers and keystone. The roof has a moulded parapet with ogee shaped-gables over windows and ball finials, on scotia moulded bases, flanking and surmounting the gables. The south elevation, to the Park, has a single mullion window surmounted by a St George cross and emblem of four birds which is flanked by small bullseye windows. The screen walls, linking the Lodge to the gates (west) and flanking the gates is of brickwork of stone plinth, has blue brick diaper work in continuous diamond pattern and is surmounted by a 3-section balustrade, of linked cast-iron roundels, framed in moulded stonework and with cast-iron ball finials on scotia moulded pedestals. The gate piers have torus moulded plinths, chamfered stone dressed quoins, moulded caps and support cast-iron heraldic lions with shields. The gates are of square rods, with spear and scroll features. They are surmounted by a semi-circular arched overthrow, based on scrolls, with the Tollemache fret emblem at its centre.

<2> Worlledge Associates, 2018, Dorfold Hall, Acton, Cheshire: Statement of Significance, R4293 (Client Report). SCH8675.

A Statement of Significance was produced in 2019 for Dorfold Hall and gardens in support of a proposal for its development as a wedding venue. The proposal is to re-develop the former service yard and stable area, including re-furbishing the existing coach house and a garden building in the walled gardens. The following information is taken from the report.

In 1849, Nesfield was commissioned to provide a report on Dorfold Hall. The report 'on the present state of the accompaniments to Dorfold Hall with propositions for improvement’, considered the first impressions of the house as far from satisfactory, with the present drive not terminating in front of the house, but the side. He considered that this, along with the dense summer foliage masking the body of the main house, would result in a visitor to the property being unsure of whether the road was a back approach. However, Nesfield's plans were not implemented until after 1861 due to family opposition to the scheme; they were eventually undertaken by Wilbraham Tollemache. The works undertaken included altering the pool in front of the house to provide for a straight access carriage drive, a gate lodge, elaborate entrance gates, a new entrance court with carriage sweep and a bronze statue of a mastiff and her pups, all enclosed with a low wall and gates, a coach house with clock tower, and a pleasure garden to the south with parterres. Trees were removed to open up views of the house, and to the south, to create a view to St. Mary's Church, Acton. It is suggested that the statute of the Mastiff and the entrance gates to the drive were bought from the Paris Exhibition of 1855. It has also been suggested that the ornamental gateway with lions was also installed as part of this work. Much of the Nesfield work survives, with the exception of the parterres to the south lawn, which were apparently removed during the Second World War.