Cheverells And Attached Stables

Dower house to the Beechwood Park estate, now a separate country house, Cheverells was built circa 1693 for the Saunders family. The South front bears the inscription “Wm. Willingdon 1706”, indicating later alterations in a different style. Further changes occurred in the 19th century to the attached coachhouse range, which became a service wing, and in 1911, when Sir Edgar Saunders-Sebright commissioned a Southeast extension and a new Northwest porch with a bay window replacing the former entrance.

The house is constructed of red brick with a Bath stone porch and front bay, and has hipped roofs covered in old red tiles. It is a large, square, compact house of two storeys facing West, with a lower two-storey service and coachhouse range extending North from the Northeast corner. A contemporary, two-storey hipped stable block extends to the West and faces North. A symmetrical Southeast extension mirrors the garden front, maintaining similar style and height.

The West front exhibits a symmetrical arrangement of seven closely-spaced windows, built with header-bond red brick and featuring rusticated Doric corner pilasters with triglyphs and a full entablature. A cornice runs continuously across the front, beneath a stone balustraded parapet with dies above the second, fourth, and sixth windows, each topped with an urn. Segmental rubbed brick arches frame segmental-headed, flush box sash windows with 6/6 panes (the upper windows in the left-hand bay are dummies). Brick keystones are present on alternate windows, with shaped brick aprons incorporating guttae brackets on the others. Symmetrically placed internal chimneys are visible. A large, central, single-storey stone, semi-octagonal bay window, with a balustrade and four ball caps, occupies the site of the former entrance. A pilastered and balustraded Bath stone Doric porch, with panelled double doors and a round-arched doorway, has been added to the North side of the house.

The South front, overlooking the garden, mirrors the West front's rusticated Doric corner pilasters in red brick with cut brick triglyphs, and has gadrooned urns on the dies of the stuccoed balustraded parapet. A symmetrical arrangement of three windows, flanked by two two-storey semi-octagonal bays in grey brick header-bond with red brick dressings and flat gauged arches, abut a semi-circular, single-storey bay. These bay windows are likely an addition from around 1700, and feature tall casement windows. A matching right-hand extension, built of two storeys and incorporating a cellar and attic, has similar rusticated pilasters, urns, and parapet details.

The long North service range features a wide, three-centred arched carriage entrance, now blocked, with a stepped stone keystone and impost blocks. Recessed sash windows are set into walls of Flemish bond brickwork, with blue headers and bright red brick dressings, along with an ovolo moulded plat-band. The stable block has a hipped roof, a torus moulded plinth, and an ovolo moulded plat-band, with sash windows incorporating 3/3 panes and a high flat arch on the North side.

The interior is reportedly decorated with a painted ceiling and carvings in the style of Grinling Gibbons.