OSW-PH-W-110-2 – Woodhill House

Woodhill House

Small country house. Early and mid-C18, extended late C19. Red brick,
slate hipped roofs with triglyph frieze and moulded eaves cornice, ridge
and end stacks. Rectangular main block with C19 square projection to
north-east corner; late C19 and C20 service ranges to rear. 2 and 3
storeys with attics; asymmetrical 8-bay east front, 3 tiers of glazing
bar sashes to right-hand 4 bays and 2 tiers of larger sash windows
to left, all with gauged heads; entrance in fourth bay from right, 6-panel
double doors with decorative radial fanlight under moulded entablature
supported by 4 decorated console brackets; 3-bay projecting range to
right has glazing bar sashes with horns and hip-roofed dormer in roof
slope.

Interior: C18 dog-leg wooden staircase with elegant turned,
decorated balusters and moulded handrail rides to attic; ground-floor
rooms have carved wooden cornices and decorative plasterwork to ceilings,
a noticeable feature being the much greater height of the rooms on the
left side of the house; also several wooden fireplaces with carved dense
foliage decoration. There is said to have formerly been a portico
over the main entrance door.

Woodhill House

In 1851, the late-18th or early-19th-century Woodhill Hall was the property and residence of Lazarus Jones Venables. The hall was located in grounds which appear in the late-19th century to have been formally laid out, stretching southward into the centre of the park. These formal areas incorporated conifers and deciduous trees, as well as various paths.

The park was probably created sometime between 1806 and 1827. Its boundaries in the east were defined by the north-south Oswestry-to-Whitehaven road, and in the north by a tributary of the Rea Brook. By the 1870s, while its area had been reduced in the north-east, the park had increased in overall size, with extensions to the north-east and south-west. At this point, the west-east minor road formed a new boundary in the south.

By 1851, the park had various plantations. The most important of these was located in the south-west, and extended westward along the park’s boundary.

By 1873-74 the park had a lodge on the Oswestry-to-Whitehaven road, from where a tree-lined approach ran towards the south-west of the Hall. There were also several trackways or paths in the park, including one associated with Pentre to the east.