Coupland Castle

Coupland Castle is a country house with a complex history, dating to the 16th century and undergoing significant alterations in the 17th, 18th, and 1820s. The building is constructed of random rubble, including large porphyry blocks, with ashlar dressings and Scottish slate roofs.

The core of the house is a tower house, built after 1584, measuring approximately 47 feet by 29 feet. It rises four stories and features 19th-century 12-pane sash windows in moulded surrounds. The original rounded corbels support a projecting parapet, which is topped with 19th-century battlements. Behind the parapet is a gabled roof, with an original stone-flagged walkway running around its perimeter.

A slightly later extension adjoins the tower on the left, creating a T-shaped configuration for the early sections of the house. This extension shares a similar appearance to the tower, with matching windows and a continuous moulded corbel table below the parapet. It has a pyramidal roof and incorporates a circular stair turret.

Attached to the left is a two-story, three-bay house dating from around 1820-25. This section features a central, battlemented porch tower with a Tudor-arched entrance and an oriel window above, supported on moulded corbels. The porch has a plaster rib vault. A two-story canted bay window is positioned on the right, while mullioned three-light windows are on the left. A battlemented parapet and a false gable are situated behind the porch.

The left return presents work from 1820-25 on the right and an 18th-century three-bay house on the left, both featuring 12-pane sash windows in raised surrounds. The rear facade is irregular.

The tower’s interior contains a vaulted basement, subsequently divided into two rooms. An original narrow stone newel stair begins on the first floor from a corbelled-out semicircular projection, now partly integrated into a later addition on the tower. This later addition also contains a broader stone newel stair from the ground floor to the first floor. At the base of this stair is a round-arched doorway with a roll-moulded surround, likely dating to the early 17th century. A similar doorway leads into the kitchen range at the rear. The base of the original tower features a late 17th or early 18th century doorway with a bolection-moulded surround. On the first floor of the tower is a large fireplace dated GW 1619 MW, for George and Mary Wallis, incorporating the initials in decorative recessed panels and a Tudor-arched lintel. The 19th-century section displays contemporary decoration including fine doors, cornices with a Greek key pattern, a cantilevered stair with a wrought-iron balustrade, several early 19th century fireplaces, and one late 18th century wood fireplace with Corinthian columns and relief carving in the lintel, which was brought from elsewhere.