Belmont Hall

The area presently occupied by the Belmont Hall estate was granted to Norton Priory by Geoffrey Dutton in the 12th century and became a monastic grange, of which only the fishpond and moat have survived. In 1749 the land was bought by John Smith Barry, who commissioned James Gibbs to design a house for him, which was completed in 1755. Gibbs died in 1754, therefore the house's construction was probably supervised by a local architect. Some of the architectural features of the house are inconsistent with Gibbs' work elsewhere, and it is considered by de Figueiredo and Treuherz, and by Hartwell et al. that changes to the design, including the two-storey bow windows, were made by the executant…

The ground floor originally contained six rooms; clockwise from the doorway they are the entrance hall, two drawing rooms, the staircase hall, the dining room, and a study or morning room. An extra room was added in the 19th century. The entrance hall is relatively plain, with a stone fireplace and pulvinated friezes over the doors. The study is panelled, and contains doorcases, a chimneypiece and an overmantel all of which are carved with flowers and fruit. The drawing rooms contain fine Rococo plasterwork on both ceilings, and on the walls and the chimneypiece of the front room. Hartwell et al. describe the plasterwork as being "quite sumptuous and exceptionally delicate". In the…