Exterior view

Robert Smythson, who aided Sir John Thynne at Longleat, later designed and built several notable houses, the finest being Wollaton Hall (1580-88) near Nottingham. Wollaton has a magnificent site on a small hill overlooking a large park. The plan of the house is a square with four square corner towers, resembling a plan in the treatise on architecture by Serlio, whose book was influential in English Renaissance architecture. The great hall is in the centre of the square; it rises an extra story above the whole building. The house has a low basement story that contained the kitchens and service rooms; it is one of the first buildings to use this arrangement, which became common in the history of later English and American architecture.

On the exterior the massing is that of a rectangular block the rectilinear quality of which is further emphasized by the numerous many-mullioned rectangular windows. The decoration is completely Classical, with superimposed pilasters, round-arched niches, and Classical balustrades, but it shows touches of Italian Mannerism, which came into England primarily from Flanders. The pilasters and half columns have raised bands across their middles, and the gables crowning the corner towers are decorated with Flemish strapwork (i.e., bands raised in relief assuming curvilinear forms suggestive of leather straps).

The photo shows the fa�ade on the park side of the building.

View the ground plan of Wollaton Hall.