Abberley Hall (That Part In Abberley)

Country house, now a private school. The building probably incorporates part of an early 18th-century house that was enlarged and extensively remodelled in the early 1840s. It was designed in 1837 and completed in 1844/45 by S W Daukes of Gloucester for J L Moilliet. The house was remodelled soon after completion and further altered in the 1880s.

The exterior is built in ashlar with a hipped and mansard slate roof set back behind a balustraded parapet with urns on pedestals and a moulded eaves cornice. The design follows a severe Italianate style in an L-plan with a projecting wing at the right and a service wing beyond. The house is two storeys with basement and attics.

The centre has five bays with large glazing bar sash windows. On the ground floor these windows are recessed and set under semi-circular flat shell heads with keystones. The first floor windows have moulded and shouldered architraves with small engaged balustrades. A moulded string course and rusticated end quoins run across the façade. At the centre is a projecting ashlar porch with a triglyph frieze and round-headed doorway. A projecting porte-cochere of circa 1883 has paired Roman Doric columns on pedestals, a triglyph frieze, parapet and central cartouche of arms.

To the left is a three-window section with one window on the ground floor. To the right is a single bay with narrow round-headed lights and a four-stage tower of two bays. The tower has channelled rustication on the ground floor with semi-circular headed recesses around the windows and windows in architraves above, all in large pane sashes. The top stage has tripartite windows, French quoins, a moulded eaves cornice and moulded string on the second stage.

The projecting wing at the right dates from the 1880s and was formerly a billiard room. It has four bays with fenestration similar to the main block and a panelled door at the left. A tall four-storey service wing of brick and render is set back at the far right with five bays to the west elevation. The windows are glazing bar sashes under segmental heads. A semi-circular stair-tower with a squat conical roof is attached by a wall at the north-west corner. The garden elevation features an Ionic veranda of three, five and three bays, with the central section slightly advanced.

The interior contains important contemporary interiors in the entrance hall, staircase hall, drawing room, library, morning room (study) and smoking room.

In the Headmaster's study, there is a painted and moulded plaster ceiling with an embossed frieze in neo-classical style. The fireplace is brass and tiled in an elaborate wooden surround and overmantel dating from the 1880s.

The Entrance Hall has a coffered ceiling with enriched beams and a deep frieze depicting Worcestershire crafts between an arcade on the inner wall. A screen at the entrance end features scagliola Ionic columns. Jacobean style fire surrounds with brass and tiled chimney pieces are present.

The Staircase Hall contains a cantilever staircase with brass balustrade and moulded handrail. The ceiling is coffered with enriched beams and painted fans in the panels. A painted frieze depicts putti and rustic scenes.

The Dining Room has a decorative panelled plaster ceiling with a central octagonal design, decorative frieze and cornice, and an elaborate fireplace with overmantel and brass side lights.

The Drawing Room has a large sub-oval centre to the ceiling with heavenly enrichment, a coffered surround and cornice. Elaborate window pelmets feature acanthus embellishment and central pediments. The fireplace surround and overmantel are in Greek revival style with ebony, gilt and stained wood, accompanied by contemporary fittings including a built-in sideboard, wall lights and mirrors, all in the same style.

The Library has a painted ceiling with a large circular centre and sunken spandrels. A frieze of painted paper with bay leaf staffs runs around. The fireplace is brass and marble with an elaborate mahogany surround and overmantel flanked by twin Doric style columns supporting a triple pediment on brackets. Inbuilt bookcases have brass openwork to the doors.

Most of the doors throughout the house are heavily moulded and set in enriched architraves.

The house is partly located in the Civil Parish of Great Witley.