Belsay Hall is a

Regency style Regency architecture encompasses classical buildings built in the United Kingdom during the Regency era in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to earlier and later buildings following the same style. The period co ...

country house located at

Belsay Belsay is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, England. The village is about from Ponteland on the A696 road, A696, which links the village with Newcastle upon Tyne and Jedburgh. The population of the civil parish was 436 at the 2001 ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. It is regarded as the first British country house to be built entirely in the new

Greek revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

style. It 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 ...

. It was built to supersede

Belsay Castle Belsay Castle is a 14th-century medieval castle situated at Belsay, Northumberland, England. It is a Scheduled Monument and a listed building, Grade I listed building. The main structure, a substantial three-storey rectangular Peel tower, pele ...

and its adjoining earlier hall just a few hundred yards away, and is part of the same estate.

History

The house was built between 1810 and 1817 for

Sir Charles Monck Sir Charles Miles Lambert Monck, 6th Baronet (7 April 1779 – 20 July 1867) was an English politician. He succeeded to the Baronetcy of Belsay Castle on the death of his father in 1795. Life He was born with the surname Middleton, as the thi ...

(then of

close by) to his own design, possibly assisted by architect John Dobson. It is built in

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

with a Lakeland slate roof in the Greek Doric style. Monck modelled his design on the style of buildings he had seen during his two-year honeymoon in Greece, particularly the

Temple of Hephaestus The Temple of Hephaestus or Hephaisteion (also "Hephesteum" or "Hephaesteum"; , , and formerly called in error the Theseion or "Theseum"; , ), is a well-preserved Greek temple dedicated to Hephaestus; it remains standing largely intact today. I ...

in Athens. The house measures square, with a lower kitchen wing attached to the north side. Externally the house appears to have two stories, although there is an additional storey hidden within the roof space to provide servant accommodation. This service side of the house was badly affected by

dry rot Dry rot is wood decay caused by one of several species of fungi that digest parts of wood which give it strength and stiffness. It was previously used to describe any decay of cured wood in ships and buildings by a fungus which resulted in a ...

in the 1970s and, following remedial work, it was left as a weather-proof shell to illustrate how the house was built. The hall was the residence of the

Middleton family The Middleton family is an English family that has been related to the British royal family by marriage since Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the wedding of Catherine Middleton to Prince William in April 2011, when she becam ...

until 1962.

Present day

The entire Belsay Hall house is unfurnished and maintained in a condition of benign decay, with only necessary structural maintenance undertaken. This allows it to be used as a setting for bespoke art installations each summer. There are extensive gardens, formal and naturalistic, such as the linear Quarry Garden. There is wheelchair access to the Quarry Garden, the ground floor of both the Hall and the Castle, and to the café. The gardens are also Grade I listed on the Historic England Park and Garden Register. Belsay Hall is administered by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

and is open to the public. In 2023 English Heritage completed a two-year conservation project has included a new roof for the hall and substantial work on the gardens.

Notes

External links

Official Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens website
- ''at English Heritage'' {{English Heritage properties in North East England Grade I listed buildings in Northumberland Country houses in Northumberland English Heritage sites in Northumberland Neoclassical architecture in England Houses completed in 1817 Historic house museums in Northumberland Gardens in Northumberland Greek Revival houses in the United Kingdom

Hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...