Stibbington House

Stibbington House is a house, formerly the miller’s house to Wansford Paper Mill. It was rebuilt after a fire circa 1805, with additions and alterations from circa 1825. A clock belvedere was added in 1844, containing a clock made by John Brumhead of Stamford. The building is constructed of coursed limestone with freestone dressings. It has shallow pitched hipped Welsh slated roofs with deep boarded eaves, surmounted by a wooden octagonal belvedere with a glazed round arched arcade and clock faces in the north and south facets. Symmetrical brick stacks are present.

The house is three storeys and has a basement, with a single-storey drawing room addition to the west of the original square plan. The main facade is symmetrical, featuring three bays approached by stone steps leading to a verandah that returns on the side elevations. Patterned cast iron piers and a frieze support a tented metal canopy. A mid-19th century Ionic pilastered architrave frames the entrance doorway, which contains a six-panelled glazed door and cast iron patterned glazing bars to a rectangular fanlight. There are two garden casements, three first-floor, and three second-floor recessed hung sash windows, all with flat gauged stone arches.

The interior details are from the early 19th century, with later 19th-century alterations, including an open string staircase with plain and turned balusters. The mill closed in 1859/60 following an explosion in 1855. The grounds were landscaped in 1927 by L.C. Gilbert for G.W. Abbott. The original building is illustrated in a billhead of Thomas Nelson, a paper maker, circa 1830, and the original portico may have been reused in the door architrave.