The West Wing, Birthwaite Hall, Huddersfield Road, Barnsley, South Yorkshire. £575k
I decided I would restrict the properties I describe here to those on the market for less than £1 million, since the more expensive ones are usually written up in Country Life and local property sections in county papers and magazines. But if you can afford a property with a price tag over a £million then the major portion of this property is also for sale at £1.2 million. I will include the link at the end. It has to be said it is one of the more exciting properties currently on the market, with a stunning staircase hall, among other period features.
However this blog is about the West Wing section, which is equally original and furnished and decorated in unusually good taste.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-60747450.html
The gardens include a stand of early trees and there are views from the terrace across the gardens which belong to the other parts of the house.
As the daughter of a professional harpsichordist I am always glad to see a period room with a harpsichord or two strewn about. They make a house a home ;) And of course a few early square or cabinet pianos a virginals and a clavichord besides a modern grand and a couple or three chamber organs are always stylish, bringing instant period character.
Even a modern house benefits from the addition of historic instruments but this splendid
early 18th century room with its bolection moulded panelling, period chimney piece and early sashes (28 panes. with substantial glazing bars) is the perfect setting for them. Of course the owners won’t be leaving their beautiful period furniture, but it is good to see a late 17th century walnut chair up to the harpsichord and the oak wainscot chair looks good beside the fire. The picture isn’t quite good
enough to make it out, but I hope the bureau bookcase in the corner by the window is burr walnut, mirrored, William and Mary or Queen Anne.
http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=334233&mode=quick
The master bedroom is as fine a bedroom as one could hope for in a period property. I think the panelling is deal and grained to look like dark walnut or Jacobean oak, but I may be wrong, it may be oak. I love the oversize convex mirror above the chimney piece and the early oak chest, roughly
contemporary with the room, with its geometric mouldings in the Flemish style. Somehow I don’t
even mind the fitted carpet in this context, though such a pale colour would be difficult to keep clean
if one were to make proper use of the fire, as I do in my period bedrooms.
As you can see there are two other reception rooms with good period features. The dining room has a Georgian dresser in front of a (presumably) blocked off
door, which is one of the slight drawbacks of living in a subdivided house (as I do) the grander the house the higher the period doorways and the grander the architrave, so it is difficult to find furniture to fit the space, perhaps a giraffe piano would be the best item for this circumstance?
bureau bookcase or indeed a dresser would probably be more practical.
I’m not terribly fond of these big modern bathrooms, but of course a house of this age would never have had any sort of a bathroom, so there is no reason not to have the latest thing really, there’s just something a bit brutal about a rectangular bath in the middle of a room and a huge shower cubicle requires twice as much cleaning as a modest one.
Again, I’m not keen on fitted kitchens, partly because I like early kitchen furniture, such as livery cupboards and food presses and dressers and displays of kitchenalia, but also because they involve so much bending down and rummaging about in low cupboards or having to drag up a chair or stool to find something in the back of a high cupboard. Dressers are designed to contain one’s cutlery and crockery at waist and shoulder height, , old kitchen tables are just the right height for rolling pastry at or kneading dough and one can keep everything one needs at reachable height in a free standing housekeeper cupboard or old school cupboard. But one could live with these as the house is so well maintained and ready to move into.
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