The Hall

TL 66 NE CHIPPENHAM CHIPPENHAM PARK

6/63 The Hall

GV II

Country House, built about 1886, Queen Anne revival, for William Montague Tharp on the original site of the early C17 mansion and incorporating the fabric of two later C17 and C18 houses. Architect unknown. The original house survives in the basement foundations and possibly much of the fabric of the great hall is cased in the north-east wing. Lord Orford rebuilt part of the house which is described in detail by Ceilia Fiennes after her visit in 1698. The service wing to the south-west, contemporary with the stable block is of this date. The rear wall of the main range of the present building could however belong to the hunting lodge built by John Tharp c.1795, on the site of the mid C17 long gallery described by John Evelyn in 1669. South-east garden facade; red brick with limestone dressings; slate roofs. Symmetrical two storeys with attics and basements. Two tall, paired stacks with moulded stone strings and three rear stacks. Three shaped attic gables each with triangular pediments and stone finials, central gable smaller. Deep egg and dart moulded stone cornice. Two attic windows, and three first floor casement windows with transomes in flat gauged brick arches with slender stone key blocks. Parapetted bay windows with similar casements flank garden entrance. Wings to right and left hand are single storeyed additions repeating details of house, built c.1930, architect Paul Phipps. Other alterations also include the remodelling of the courtyard entrance. Two wings flanking courtyard in rear elevation, both of seven 'bays'. Local red/brown brick, slate roofs. Wing to south-west two storeys with attics, rebuilt parapet gables and north-west wall rebuilt with C19 casement windows in original openings with segmental red gauged brick arches, band between floors and stone quoins to first four 'bays'. Ridge stack. North-east wing, two storeys possibly reduced in height with an added C19 'bay' to north-west has C19 replacement windows. Facade to north-east wing cased in C19 red brick with two pedimented side stacks. Interior details of the C17 houses survive in panelling with light bolection moulding, and eight-panelled doors, some very finely carved details incorporated in the C19 hall chimney piece, and turned balusters, re-used in the entrance hall balustrade.

Estate map. 1712 for Lord Orford. C.R.O. Morris C. Ceilia Fiennes, 1685-1712, pp.140-1, 1982 Barber R W. History of Chippenham, 1897 John Evelyn's Diaries, 1669 Spufford M. A Cambridgeshire Community. 1965 Architectural Drawings. Paul Phipps, C.R.O. Pevsner. Buildings in England, p.323 O S Maps. 1885, 1903 Taylor C. The Cambridgeshire Landscape, p.167, 1973

Listing NGR: TL6644769318