Hilton Hall is an early 17th-century

English country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

in the village of Hilton in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

. The hall is listed Grade II* on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

. The

dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot (Scots Language, Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house Domestic pigeon, pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or b ...

in the grounds of the hall is listed Grade II.

Description

With an entrance onto the village High Street in Hilton, in the district of

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England, which was historically a county in its own right. It borders Peterborough to the north, Fenland to the north-east, East Cambridgeshire to the e ...

, the hall is a brick-built gentleman's house first built in the early 17th century. It has three storeys, and the ground plan takes the shape of a letter T. The front elevation has an 18th-century facade. The roof is tiled, with a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

and parapet gables and with chimney stacks with recessed panels. Inside is a magnificent early 17th-century oak staircase with six flights of steps. The beams are moulded, with decorated stops, and in the hall is 18th-century panelling. A 20th-century one-storey extension to the rear of the house also has 18th-century panelling, which came from the nearby Park Farm when it was demolished.Hilton Hall, Gate Piers Forecourt Wall, Hilton
at britishlistedbuildings.co.uk, accessed 3 February 2017 Standing to the south of the main house is a fine square dovehouse with a hipped pyramid roof, believed to date from the late 17th century. An article in '' Country Life'' magazine in 2001 notes that "The original position of the windows in the 17th century is entirely lost under the mid-18th-century rearrangement, with the bizarre structural result that internally beams run into the lintels of the main windows". From the village street, the main entrance has two red brick gate piers with ball

finials A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, tower, roof, or gable or an ...

and

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

gates (dated 1845) giving onto a forecourt.

Residents

According to one account, Hilton Hall was built for Robert Walpole, gentleman, who still owned it when he died in 1699 aged 100.''Country Life'' magazine, Volume 195, Issues 8-13 (2001), p. 90 The house has strong connections with the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

. In 1924 it was acquired by the writer

David Garnett David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was an English writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Early ...

, and he lived there until the 1960s, initially with his first wife, Ray Marshall (1891–1940), sister of

Frances Partridge Frances Catherine Partridge CBE (née Marshall; 15 March 1900 – 5 February 2004) was an English writer. Closely connected to the Bloomsbury Group, she is probably best known for the publication of her diaries. She married Ralph Partridge (189 ...

, and later with his second wife,

Angelica Garnett Angelica Vanessa Garnett (née Bell; 25 December 1918 – 4 May 2012), was a British writer, painter and artist. She was the author of the memoir ''Deceived with Kindness'' (1984), an account of her experience growing up at the heart of t ...

, daughter of

Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a Scottish painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets, and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major ...

and

Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...

Frances Spalding Frances Spalding FRSL (née Crabtree; born 16 July 1950) is a British art historian, writer and a former editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''. Life Frances Crabtree studied at the University of Nottingham and gained her PhD for a study of Roge ...

Angelica Garnett obituary
in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' dated 7 May 2012 online, accessed 3 February 2017 In 2001 the house was still lived in by Richard Garnett, son of the writer, and his wife.

Notes

{{coord, 52.2803, -0.1092, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Bloomsbury Group locations Buildings and structures in Huntingdonshire Country houses in Cambridgeshire Dovecotes Grade II listed agricultural buildings Grade II* listed buildings in Cambridgeshire Grade II* listed houses Houses completed in the 17th century