Alveston House

Alveston House is a small country house dating from 1689, with alterations made in the 18th century. It is constructed of brick with blue headers and ashlar dressings, and has a hipped tile roof with two brick cross-axial stacks and a stack to the valley. The building follows a double-depth plan and is in a restoration style. It comprises two storeys with an attic and basement, arranged symmetrically in a five-bay range. The house has an ashlar-coped plinth, a plat band over the ground floor, and quoins; the top has a modillioned timber cornice. The entrance, dating from around 1750, features a Doric porch with a triglyph frieze featuring flowers in the metopes and guttae. The soffit is enriched and the overlight has decorative glazing bars to a four-panel door. Windows have moulded sills and rubbed brick flat arches with keys over 18-pane sashes with wide frames. The basement has two-light, single-chamfered windows with flat-faced mullions, which are now blocked. The attic features two flat-roofed dormers with cornices and two-light casements, and a lantern to the angle. The right return, which faces the garden, has a seven-bay arrangement with a pedimented centre and two-bay windows. The entrance has a doorcase with an architrave, frieze, and cornice, panelled pilasters, and a deep bracketed open pediment. The garden front’s windows have 12-pane sashes; the central first-floor window has rusticated brick jambs and a similar flat arch, with an ashlar key bearing a rosette. Four dormers are also present. The pediment includes an armorial crest. The rear of the house is similar to the front, with barred basement windows and a rainwater head with a mask. The left return contains several blocked windows and a sashed stair window above 20th-century single-storey additions that replaced a 19th-century service range. The interior includes rooms with cornices and stone fireplaces. The entrance hall has two fluted pilasters. A 20th-century staircase with iron balusters replaced an earlier staircase of unknown date. One front room features a late 19th-century cast-iron Adam-style fireplace, decorated with figures and foliage. A room to the left has dado panelling and a triglyph frieze, while a room to the right, now divided, has a cornice with egg-and-dart moulding. On the first floor, a rear room has a fielded-panelled dado. The attic has exposed collar trusses with curved principals. The cellars feature flag floors with drainage channels, chamfered beams and two vaulted chambers, one of which is a wine cellar, as well as a water pump. Alveston House is a good example of a small Restoration country house situated between the old church of St James and the River Avon.