Pershore Hall

Pershore Hall is a large country house built in 1862 and subsequently altered, designed by Whitfield Dawkes for the Humphries family. It has been divided into flats. The house is constructed of red brick with blue brick diaperwork and limestone ashlar dressings, with hipped Welsh-slate roofs and brick stacks concealed behind parapets.

The plan is roughly square, with entrances on the north-east and south-east elevations, and a decorative elevation to the south-west. The architecture is in the Jacobethan style, characterized by a deep plinth, moulded string courses, quoined angles and surrounds, mullioned windows (some transomed) with hoodmoulds, and an ornate roofscape featuring decorative parapets, turrets, spires and finials.

The south-east elevation has five bays, with the central bay projecting below a taller gable. At each end is a three-stage polygonal turret with an embattled conical cap. The outer bays feature cross-windows with moulded surrounds and hoodmoulds, incorporating decorative relief panels as keystones and figurative stops to the hoodmoulds. The central bay has an oriel window on the first floor, topped with a tiered pyramidal roof and a decorative finial. A remodelled door is set within a brick surround. The north-east elevation is dominated by a gabled entrance bay, featuring two pointed-arch stair-windows with mullions, transoms, hoodmoulds, decorative stops, and coloured glass. A two-storey bay-window also features a tiered pyramidal roof. The south-west elevation is asymmetrical, with a plainer three-bay wing projecting to the left. A gabled bay, flanked by turrets, has a two-storey canted bay-window with a pyramidal stone roof. A further gabled bay has a window of four stepped lights on the first floor, with the central lights beneath a pointed arch. A moulded pointed-arched doorway (now a window) is located below.

The interior of the northern entrance hall contains a pointed-arch arcade with heavily-ordered arches, stiff-leaf capitals, a stiff-leaf ceiling cornice, a stone staircase with decorative wrought-iron balusters, and decorative nine-panel doors.

Pershore Hall was built for the Humphries family, who were machine-makers, on the site of a former farm. Whitfield Dawkes was also the architect of Cirencester Agricultural College.