Wingerworth Hall, demolished 1927, was the ancestral home of the Hunloke family in the village of

Wingerworth Wingerworth is a large village and parish in North East Derbyshire, England. Its population, according to the 2011 census, was 6,533. Wingerworth is southwest of Chesterfield, south of Sheffield and north of London. Tupton, Clay Cross, Grass ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It was built on an elevated site and completed in 1724 by an unknown architect. The house was in the rare style of understated

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

peculiar to England. The rectangular building was on three floors raised above a

semi-basement In architecture, a semi-basement is a floor of a building that is half below ground, rather than entirely such as a true basement or cellar. Traditionally, semi-basements were designed in larger houses where staff was housed. A semi-basement usu ...

, thus causing to the principal rooms to be on a

piano nobile The ''piano nobile'' (Italian for "noble floor" or "noble level", also sometimes referred to by the corresponding French term, ''bel étage'') is the principal floor of a palazzo. This floor contains the main reception and bedrooms of the hou ...

reached from a broad straight external staircase. The principal

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

was of three

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

s with the central entrance bay projecting. The ornament was chaste, alleviated by only by the

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

of the central entrance which supported a broken pediment,

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

ing at the extremities of the building and massive

key stone Keystone or key-stone or ''variation'', may refer to: * Keystone (architecture), a central stone or other piece at the apex of an arch or vault * Keystone (cask), a fitting used in ale casks Business * Keystone Law, a full-service law firm * Di ...

s above each window. The roof was hidden by a balustrade decorated by urns alternating with stone

sphere A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

s. This format of design was typical of the rare late English Baroque, and can be seen in a less sophisticated form at Sherborne House in Dorset and in its full fruition at Chatsworth and

Easton Neston Easton Neston is situated in south Northamptonshire, England. Though the village of Easton Neston which was inhabited until around 1500 is now gone, the parish retains the name. At the 2011 Census the population of the civil parish remained le ...

. The interior of Wingerworth was arranged around a central double height hall described as "a model of English Baroque". The gardens of Wingerworth Hall were designed by

Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

. By the end of the 19th century the Hunloke's fortune was severely depleted and the house was let to tenants. In 1920 it was offered for sale. Failing to find a purchaser wishing to reside in the house, the Hunloke family sold it to a demolition contractor, and its interiors were stripped and sold. One of the rooms was displayed in the

Saint Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, Mi ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

.St Louis Art Museum
/ref> The room was removed when the galleries were renovated in the mid-1980s. The neoclassical Oak Drawing Room was purchased by William Randolph Hearst to be reassembled in Hearst Castle at San Simeon. Unused by Hearst, it was eventually acquired by architect Wilson McClure who used it as the nucleus of a house in Dallas, Texas. The two servants' buildings and the gate keepers lodge on Hockley Lane remains as private dwellings.

Notes

External links

Wingerworth Hall
- Wingerworth Hall, Estate and much more

- longer history with additional images

References

* Former country houses in England Country houses in Derbyshire British country houses destroyed in the 20th century {{Derbyshire-struct-stub