Lartington Hall, Teesdale: Building Recording (OASIS ID: archaeoe1-381400)

Watching brief and building recording during conservation works to an historic country house. Earliest identified parts of the house are dated to 1623 with significant Georgian and Victorian extensions. Lartington Hall lies at the east end of the small village of Lartington, Teesdale, now in County Durham, but until 1974 part of the historic County of the North Riding of Yorkshire. The Hall is a large multi-period country house, set within formal gardens, pleasure grounds and surrounding parkland. With origins in the late 17th century, the Hall incorporates major additions from the 18th and 19th centuries and is Listed at grade II*, it lies within both the Lartington Village Conservation Area and its own designated Historic Park and Garden. In 2011 Archaeo-Environment (AE) were commissioned to undertake a historic study and produce a Statement of Significance (SoS) for Lartington Hall. This was undertaken on behalf of the then new owners Shona Harper and John Wilkes and was used by Kevin Doonan Architects to produce a scheme of works for the Hall to take forward its conservation and restoration and allow for an informed discussion on subtle alterations for development into a wedding and conference venue. The SoS provided a researched history of the Hall and identified areas of heritage significance to be found in its internal spaces, external fabric, designed landscape and potential for archaeological deposits. Following discussions with the planning authority (Durham County Council) and English Heritage, a planning and a listed building consent application were submitted and validated on the 17th April 2012. Planning permission and Listed building Consent was granted on the 12th of October 2012 with the reference 6/2012/0128/DM/LB. Conditions 14 and 15 of the approved planning consent required in turn the undertaking of archaeological monitoring of all works and in due course the preparation of a report and where appropriate an archive of observations and results. A Written Scheme of Investigation (WSI) for archaeological monitoring was agreed with Durham County Council in November 2012. This report now provides the results of several episodes of archaeological recording work during the conservation and building works at the Hall and together with a photo archive provides the necessary conclusion to the project fulfilling the requirements of the WSI and condition 15. In summary the archaeological watching brief provided some limited evidence of exposed building fabric, former decorative schemes and buried archaeological deposits which all add to the existing historical understanding of the Hall without requiring the revision of the chronology and building development described in the SoS of 2012. No further work is advised on the results of the archaeological watching brief.