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• Miscellaneous documents
  • Dryderdale, Shull Bank, South Bedburn (Ref: D/X 2209/1/1-8)

Catalogue Description

The plans are for Dryderdale, Shull in the township of Bedburn near Hamsterley, described on the plans as near Wolsingham.

A Grade 2 listed building, English Heritage describes it as follows, using Kelly's Directory 1902 and the owner's information as its sources:
Dated 1879. By A. Waterhouse for Alfred Backhouse of Pillmore Hall, Darlington. Coursed sandstone rubble with plinth, quoins and ashlar dressings. Roof of Welsh slate with some synthetic tiles in repairs; stone gable copings. Irregular plan. French Renaissance style. Entrance front 2 storeys and attics, 6 bays, the first and fourth projecting under front gables, and 3- storey octagonal left corner tower. Gabled porch in second bay has double door in moulded segmental-headed stone surround; many-stepped side buttresses support stepped gable coping with mace finial. One-storey pent front extension to left gable under corbelled external stack, with central recessed monogram. Fourth-bay gable projects further, with 3-light windows, and 2-light window in gable peak. Varied fenestration, all stone-mullioned and transomed, includes large stair window to right of door, and paired half dormers in fifth bay. Steeply-pitched roof has paired octagonal chimneys on ridge and on front external stack; steeply-pitched octagonal tower roof has swept eaves on carved band. Ashlar-banded coped gables with finials. Left return, with vista to landscape dropping steeply away, has canted bay under dated gable in left bay. Rear elevation to garden in similar style but with first-floor canted oriel, on buttress, with steep roof set against large gable wall. Interior much damaged by fire, but plan and stone arcaded stair hall survive. Being restored at time of survey.

However, this set of plans were prepared by George Gordon Hoskins JP, FRIBA (1837-1911), an architect from Darlington. He set up his architectural practice in 1864 and retired in 1907, having designed substantial buildings for public, private and commercial clients. His clients included Quaker industrialists and bankers. Hoskins was born to a Staffordshire family and, after practical experience with firms mainly in London, he was appointed Clerk of Works to Alfred Waterhouse, eminent Quaker architect, in the building of Pilmore Hall, Hurworth for Alfred Backhouse in 1863 and Jonathan Backhouse and Company's new bank premises on High Row, Darlington in 1864.

Hoskins' first commission was the Temperance Hall in Hurworth in 1864, followed by designs for prominent families, many of them Quakers. He was responsible for buildings right across the North East, with Middlesbrough Town Hall his most widely recognised building.

A biography of Hoskins by Vera Chapman is included in the Durham County Local History Society's 'Durham Biographies' volume one, 2000 [DCRO Library reference E77]

See also the Wallace Collection for photograph albums including Dryderdale:
Ref No: D/Wa 3/6/2
Photograph album of views including Hendon Hill, Ashburne, Pilmore Hall, Dryderdale, Shull, Seaton Carew, Tees Grange, Hurworth Grange, Smelt House, Dukes House and Blackwell, 1868 - 1885

Ref No: D/Wa 3/6/32
Photograph album of Rachel A. and Edward B. Mounsey including the wedding announcement and certificate, wedding guests, Hendon Hill, Smelt House, Seaton, Dryderdale, London and area, and honeymoon on the Isle of Wight, 1878

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