Ouse Bank House

SP84 NEWPORT PAGNELL HIGH STREET (East Side)

645/1/5 Ouse Bank House

GV II

Alternatively known as: BROOK LANDS, OUSEBANK STREET. House. Circa 1689; mid-late C19 extension; C20 extensions and alterations. Red brick with blue headers in Flemish bond; plain tile roof; brick stacks. 2 storeys, built in 2 sections, the earlier a 4-window bay at the S, between giant brick pilasters with moulded brick capitals and dentilled cornice. Parapet rebuilt. The entrance is at the left, a handsome eared doorcase with moulded canopy on cut modillion brackets, and a 6-fielded and panelled door with a 5-lobed fanlight in a rectangular opening over, egg and dart moulded archivolt and trefoils in the spandrels. Twelve-paned sashes set with the boxes near the face of the brickwork, and having heavy glazing bars and original crown glass. Openings have rubbed 13-in brick flat arches and moulded sills (replaced on the ground floor). Central lead hopper and down pipe. Behind the parapet, two flat-roofed dormer windows. On the N gable end a large brick stack, its base rendered, and rising as three close-spaced square stacks. Superimposed on the right 2 bays a square bay window of c.1940 with soldier-coped parapet and a flat roof. Large 20-pane sash window. The building was extended to the N by 3 bays in the mid-late C19, using more pronounced blue headers, but the detail otherwise identical. Blocked cellar openings. The return elevation on the N has 3 round- headed openings on the ground floor, the centre a doorway, and external chimneybreast over with curved shoulders to the stack. Two lead hoppers. The rear elevation has large 9-pane sash windows with slender glazing bars to the upper floors, 3-pane to the attic level. The rear elevation returns by one bay at the S side meeting a later build. Interior: Altered on the ground floor. The first floor room at the N end of the C17 section is fully panelled with bolection moulded panelling, a handsome moulded cornice, chair rail, a bolection moulded fireplace with an overmantle landscape oil painting on canvas, now largely concealed. The steward's office has a lesser-moulded cornice, but a good moulded doorcase with swept pediment. The large ground floor room in the later section has a lateral fireplace with moulded surround and mirrored overmantle Cornice.

History: described as a 'capital; mansion house' when built, it came by conveyance of 1756 to Roger Chapman and his wife who was then bought out by Walter Beaty, Congregationalist and promoter of the lace industry, who died in 1791. Following the Second World War it functioned as a County Branch Library until the new building was built in the 19605. Mynard D and Hunt J, A Pictorial History of Newport Pagnell, 1995, fig 117; Pevsner N and Williamson E, Buckinghamshire, Buildings of England Series, Second edition, 1994, p 578; Information provided by Mr D Mynard.

Listing NGR: SP8781644027