The Wodehouse

SO 89 SE 5/164 16.6.53

WOMBOURNE C.P. WODEHOUSE LANE (south side) The Wodehouse

GV II*

Small country house. C14 core with C17 additions and C18 internal refittings; remodelled 1872-3 by C.F. Bodley; alterations and additions of 1895-7 by C.R. Ashbee and of 1912 by J.K.H.E. Lavender of Wolverhampton. Timber framed core and billiard room of 1895-7, otherwise rendered brick; plain tile roofs; brick stacks. Irregular E-plan; principal alignment roughly east-west facing south, incorporating the hall range and parlour end of a C14 house; porch and flanking wings to the south front on a north-south alignment, the former is by Bodley, the latter are probably C17; Ashbee added a chapel on the same alignment to the south-east angle and a billiard room at the north-east angle; north-east service block added by the Lavenders. The present Jacobean appearance-of the house is a result of the C19 remodelling. South front. 2 storeys and gable-lit attics. Roughly 7 bays; central porch and a pair of flanking wings, all with shaped gables and finials, deep recesses in between; similar blind gable attached to the left hand side of the left hand wing; hard up against the right hand wing is Ashbee's boldly projecting chapel with a less formal shaped gable. Each of the wings flanking the porch has a pair of ground floor cross windows, a first floor canted bay window with pediment, and a 2-light mullioned attic window with semi-circular pediment and intertwined initials T.S.H. (for Shaw-Hellier) above; mullioned and transomed windows in each of the recesses; the porch has giant angle pilasters capped by crouching lions, a keyed semi-circular entrance arch, a first floor window of 4 transomed lights with semi-circular pediment, and a pedimented sundial within a square panel, this is by Ashbee. Tall chapel south window of 3 lights extended below as blind panels, square head and nominal tracery; to the west a square headed window of 4 cusped lights. West front. 3 shaped gables linked by a parapet incorporating the motto 'DOMUM DULCE DOMUM' instead of balusters; this is by Ashbee. 3 cross windows to both first and second floors grouped slightly to right of centre, 2 square mullioned and transomed bay windows by Bodley to the left, first floor bay window and ground floor mullioned and transomed window to right, central attic casement. Interior. Massive C14 arch-braced spere truss, to the east of it a queen strut truss which formed the lower end wall of the medieval hall, C14 close studded timber framing with tension braces. Early C18 dog-leg staircase in the parlour wing with turned balusters and moulded handrail; C17 stone fireplaces with moulded surrounds; much C18 wall panelling; early C20 staircase in a late C17 style with turned balusters and panelled dado. V.C.H. Vol. XX (1984) pp.205-6; B.O.E. p.327.

Listing NGR: SO8854593535