Kettlethorpe Hall is a Georgian house in

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

, West Yorkshire, England. The hall is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. From 1847 until 1996, the grounds of the hall contained the façade of a 14th-century chapel on the front of a

boathouse A boathouse (or a boat house) is a building especially designed for the storage of boats, normally smaller craft for sports or leisure use. describing the facilities These are typically located on open water, such as on a river. Often the boats ...

, which was a Grade II* listed building.

History

Kettlethorpe Hall is a Georgian house on the outskirts of

, built by the Pilkington family It is a two-storey building constructed of stone, and contains

Doric columns The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

. The house underwent multiple renovations in the 19th century. The first floor keystone showed the date of construction as 1727. In 1847, the façade of the 14th century

Chantry Chapel A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Church service, Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantr ...

(also known as the Sentry Chapel) on

Wakefield Bridge Chantry Bridge, sometimes known as Wakefield Bridge, is a mediaeval bridge in the city of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, in England. In the early 14th century, there was a timber bridge over the River Calder, West Yorkshire, River Calder in Wake ...

was moved to Kettlethorpe Hall, and the original restored. The façade was attached to a

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

, beside the hall's

artificial lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

. In 1859, the folly was temporarily used as a

mortuary A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cus ...

. In the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

volume of ''

Pevsner Architectural Guides The ''Pevsner Architectural Guides'' are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. ''The Buildings of England'' series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes pu ...

'',

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

described the boathouse as "the most precious of all boat houses". In 1950, Kettlethorpe Hall was purchased by

Wakefield Council Wakefield Council, also known as the City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, is the local authority of the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England. Wakefield has had a council since 1848, which has been reformed on several occasions ...

, and was used as a

retirement home A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home, old folks' home, or old age home, although ''old people's home'' can also refer to a nursing home – or rest home, is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Ty ...

until 1983. In 1988, the hall was bought by Yorkshire Preservation Trust, who converted it into two separate houses. Wakefield Council still owned the grounds surrounding the hall. In 1996, the remains of the boathouse were removed from the grounds of Kettlethorpe Hall by Wakefield Council, who put it into storage. The remaining stones of the boathouse became a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

, and in 2014, they were put into the secret garden at Thornes Park in Wakefield. The stones were erected at an angle to make them easier to view. Nowadays, the house is privately owned, but the grounds are a public park. In 1953, Kettlethorpe Hall became a Grade I

. The boathouse is separately listed as a Grade II* listed building.

References

{{reflist Grade I listed buildings in West Yorkshire Grade I listed houses Houses completed in 1727 Houses in West Yorkshire Listed buildings in Wakefield

History

See also

References