The Wodehouse

The Wodehouse is a small country house with a core dating back to the 14th century, significantly altered over the centuries with additions from the 17th century and internal refitting in the 18th. It was substantially remodelled between 1872 and 1873 by C.F. Bodley, followed by alterations and additions in 1895-7 by C.R. Ashbee, and further additions in 1912 by J.K.H.E. Lavender of Wolverhampton. The house’s structure is a mix of timber framing – particularly in the core and billiard room (1895-7) – and rendered brick, topped with plain tile roofs and brick stacks. The building’s layout is irregular, loosely arranged in an east-west alignment facing south. The original 14th-century house’s hall and parlour end are incorporated into the southern range, which is flanked by wings likely dating from the 17th century. Ashbee added a chapel to the south-east angle and a billiard room to the north-east, while the Lavenders contributed a north-east service block. The house now presents a largely Jacobean appearance, a result of the 19th-century renovations.

The south front is two storeys with attic windows and is roughly seven bays wide, featuring a central porch and flanking wings, all with shaped gables and finials; a blind gable sits to the left of the left wing. Ashbee’s chapel boldly projects to the right, its gable less formal. Each wing has a pair of cross windows on the ground floor, a first-floor canted bay window with a pediment, and a two-light mullioned attic window with a semi-circular pediment bearing the intertwined initials T.S.H. Mullioned and transomed windows fill the recesses between the wings. The porch is distinguished by giant angle pilasters topped with crouching lions, a keyed semi-circular entrance arch, a four-light transomed window above, and an Ashbee-designed sundial set within a square panel. A tall three-light chapel window is extended downwards as blind panels, with a square-headed window of four cusped lights to its west. The west front features three shaped gables linked by a parapet displaying the motto ‘DOMUM DULCE DOMUM’ in place of balusters, also by Ashbee. It features three cross windows on both floors, two mullioned and transomed bay windows by Bodley to the left, a first-floor bay window and ground-floor mullioned window to the right, and a central attic casement.

Inside, a massive arch-braced queen strut truss remains from the 14th-century hall, along with close-studded timber framing with tension braces. An early 18th-century dog-leg staircase with turned balusters and a moulded handrail is found in the parlour wing. The house also has 17th-century stone fireplaces with moulded surrounds, much 18th-century wall panelling, and an early 20th-century staircase designed in a late 17th-century style, featuring turned balusters and a panelled dado.