The Court and Forecourt Walls to North is a Grade II listed building in the West Berkshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 10 November 1983. House.
The Court and Forecourt Walls to North
- WRENN ID
- empty-tracery-mallow
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- West Berkshire
- Constituency
- Reading West and Mid Berkshire MP: Olivia Bailey (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 10 November 1983
- Type
- House
- Address
- The Court and Forecourt Walls to North, Woolhampton Hill
- OS grid reference
- SU 574 673
- Coordinates
- 51.40204, -1.17515
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Court and forecourt walls to the north are part of a house dated 1908, designed by Sir Mervyn Macartney in a Free Artisan Mannerist style. The building is constructed of red brick and features a string course, brick quoins, and gauged window heads with alternating projecting voussoirs and keystones. It has a moulded brick eaves cornice beneath a tiled roof. The structure includes two projecting wings with large shaped gables, two central hipped dormers with casement windows, and four asymmetrically placed rusticated stacks with cornices.
The house has an irregular plan with a service wing to the east and consists of two storeys and an attic with five bays. It features leaded cross windows, with the centre bay recessed and showcasing an 8-light mullioned and transomed window on the first floor. A central porch is adorned with a parapet and two obelisks, featuring a rubbed brick arch with a keystone and rusticated Doric pilasters that support a segmental pediment.
To the left, there is a two-storey wing with two bays and cross windows, while the far left houses the service wing, which is also two storeys high with a hipped tile roof, tile-hung first floor, two gables, and two stacks. On the right, a two-storey, two-bay wing features cross windows and a central stack with a plaque that has an open triangular pediment and the initials M.G.W.E. along with the date in the tympanum.
The low brick forecourt walls are complemented by wrought iron railings and rusticated brick piers topped with ball finials. The south front displays cross windows with aprons, and the central projection has two shaped gables with a stone sundial positioned between them. There are three first-floor windows and three ground-floor windows. The west front includes a hipped dormer to the right, a projection to the left with a shaped gable, and a two-storey canted bay that rises to the cornice with a parapet. The first floor has a cross window to the right, and beneath it is a glazed loggia supported by Tuscan columns.
The interior retains its plan and some fittings, including fireplaces.
Local climate
The Court and Forecourt Walls to North receives an average of 750 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 72% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 63% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 52% of listed buildings. Of these, 14 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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