Wilton Castle

Wilton Castle is a country house built around 1810 by Sir Robert Smirke for Sir John Lowther. Later alterations occurred around 1886, primarily to the north porch, east wing, pavilion, and an extension to the west pavilion. The site incorporates the remains of a 14th-century castle belonging to the Bulmer family. The building is currently used as offices for I.C.I. Plc.

The house is constructed of margin-tooled dressed sandstone with Welsh slate roofs, and is designed in a Gothick style. It’s symmetrical in layout, with a 15-bay north entrance front consisting of a central 5-bay section flanked by 2-storey, 5-bay wings. A slightly projecting 4-storey central tower has a 2-storey projecting porch with diagonal buttresses. The porch has 8-panel double doors set within a Tudor-arched, moulded surround, beneath a hoodmould and a blank tablet above the door. The central section features projecting gabled end bays with 2-storey canted bay windows, flanked by embattled octagonal stair turrets. The windows are chamfered mullioned and transomed, with pointed arches on the first floor; some have hoodmoulds, and sashes with glazing bars are present alongside casements in the end bays. The wings feature buttresses between bays and similar windows with casements. A turret is located at the end of the left wing, while the right wing has a blocked 2-centred carriage arch in its end bay and another turret between the 4th bay and the end bay, connected by a projecting screen wall. All turrets have three stages with lancet windows, and strings between the stages. The building is topped with embattled parapets, alongside corniced ridge and end stacks. A smaller turret rises from the middle of the right wing roof.

An embattled 2-bay screen wall, with turrets defining the bays, incorporates a pointed doorway and a mock window, beneath hoodmoulds at the left, and a chamfered Tudor-arched carriage opening displaying carved Lowther arms at the right, with blind cross arrowloops in the spandrels. The rear garden front is similarly designed, with a gable over the centre bay and a one-storey, 3-bay right wing, plus a 2-storey, 5-bay left wing and one-bay end pavilions with diagonal buttresses. An altered central doorway exists, and the porch is missing. Pointed doorways, located in the inner returns of the end bays of the centre, provide access to the stair turrets. A two-storey, one-bay extension adjoins the west end of the left pavilion.

The interior features an entrance hall with oak panelling, a fluted frieze, and a dentil cornice; a quasi-Ionic chimney piece is also present. The dining room, ballroom, and entrance hall have Jacobean-style panelled ceilings. A dogleg staircase, situated at the east end, possesses turned balusters, a moulded handrail, a key-moulded string, and a newel post with a ball finial.