Listed building details
Location: (West side) Inverforth House
Street: North End Way
Grade: II
Reference No: 798-1-12178
Date of listing: Sep 7 1988 12:00AM
Description:
Formerly known as: The Hill NORTH END WAY. Substantial house, now a convalescent home. Original house 1807, rebuilt c1895 and successively modified by WH Lever, Viscount Leverhulme, who owned the house from 1904 until his death in 1925. Alterations included rebuilding of central block and addition of north and south wings to garden front (now with C20 2nd storeys) of c1905 by Grayson and Ould of Liverpool who also designed the terrace along the garden front, to which Thomas H Mawson added an Ionic verandah c1910. Terrace later altered in 1923 by Leslie Mansfield who added a ballroom beneath it. South wing extended and remodelled 1924-5 by Mawson in conjunction with TH Mawson and Sons; library wing added to entrance front 1913-14 by William and Segar Owen of Warrington. Red brick; steeply pitched, hipped tiled roof to eaves. Neo-Georgian manner with Queen Anne style wings to garden front. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys plus roof storey and basement. North and south wings formerly single storey. Garden front unified horizontally by a Portland stone Ionic colonnade across the ground floor, with three segmental projections and balustrading to terrace. Dominant slightly projecting centre piece of 5 bays beneath hipped roof with open segmental pediment to central dormer. Canted bay window to 1st floor centre bay of 3 windows wide, flanked by smaller canted timber bay windows; 4 further windows to wings on either side. Flush frames with small panes, some with transoms and mullions. Stone eaves cornice. Projecting wings have brick half-columns applied between bays, the 3 bays closest to house being treated as an arcade with arches between piers; remaining bays with brick architraves to 18-paned sashes. Much rubbed brickwork; richly moulded brick cornices. INTERIORS: richly decorated in various styles ranging from Jacobean to William and Mary and Adamesque. Decorative features of interest throughout the house but of particular note are the Ionic pilastered entrance hall with carved marble staircase, the fine Adam-style room opening onto the terrace at ground floor level with its columnar screen and decorative plasterwork ceiling and cornice; also the marble columned lobby to the south of this at ground floor level and the music room, panelled in C17 style and probably reusing some C17 woodwork, particularly in the decorative chimney-piece. A rich architectural amalgam reflecting the tastes of a notable patron.
HISTORICAL NOTE: following Leverhulme’s death in 1925, the house was bought by Lord Inverforth and when he died The Hill was presented to Manor House Hospital in 1956. The gardens were designed and laid out by Thomas H Mawson from 1906. Further northern garden laid out during 1920s by Leslie Mansfield. Garden west of the Formal Pond (qv) and further northern garden, now under separate ownership and known as The Hill Garden, North End Way; this garden is open to the public.
Location of Listed Building