Wentworth Woodhouse, Mansion House

Overview

Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed stately home in South Yorkshire, with the longest façade of any country house in England. It stands in 87 acres of gardens and grounds and has extensive views over former parkland, including a deer park and lakes. Mason Clark Associates’ York Heritage Team and Leeds Civils Team have been working closely with the Preservation Trust since 2017 to carry out urgent works across the Estate, and designing conservation engineering interventions, remedial repairs and strengthening as part of the main re-roofing scheme to the Mansion House.

Tasks / challenges

When the Preservation Trust took over the building in 2017, the fabric was steadily deteriorating with water pouring into the 18th century State Rooms through multiple holes in the historic roofs. Staff were collecting and emptying 180 buckets overflowing with rainwater and mopping the floors after every storm.

Activity

Mason Clark Associates' (MCA) involvement included advice in relation to urgent temporary works across the Wentworth Estate while the main Mansion House re-roofing scheme was completed. Elements include propping to decayed roof timbers and short-term stabilisation of masonry parapets. We also designed structural repairs to the roof of the Grade I Listed Riding School.

For the Mansion House itself, we inspected all the key roof areas as finishes were stripped, provided a schedule of conservation repairs to timber and historic metalwork, and designed new structural support where pitches were re-modelled to improve drainage. We specified consolidation and strapping to gables, statues and large decorative urns, and carried out a load capacity assessment of the gallery to the Marble Saloon.

We also scheduled essential repairs to underground drainage around the Mansion House to remove the risk of flooding at low level.

Results

After almost two years of specialist repairs to the roofs over the State Rooms, Phase 2 of the repair programme is now complete and the majority of the Palladian-style East Front of the mansion is now water-tight. Essential roof repairs have also been completed to the Riding School, North and South Pavilions, and Long Gallery.