West Court

West Court

A former manor house with a 17th-century core and substantial additions and rebuilding in 1800, 1835, 1901 and 1964, latterly used as an officers' mess.

The older parts are built of red brick laid mainly in English Bond with tiled roofs and brick chimneystacks. The building is situated in large grounds with its main entrance following the line of the Roman road to the west. To the south is an avenue bounded by rows of trees on each side, and to the north are the remains of a kitchen garden.

The 17th-century building occupies a roughly rectangular area on the south of the current plan, containing a large entrance hall, drawing room, stair hall and a parlour known as the Oak Room. The porch dates from 1835. The 1901 east wing contains a library and lounge. The 1964 northern extensions, in neo-Georgian manner, comprise a single-storey range with a very large dining room adjoining a three-storey bedroom wing and service accommodation.

The principal elevation of the 17th-century building is set on a terrace facing south onto the former gardens and avenue, presenting a strict symmetrical composition in plain detailing. It is arranged in five bays with two storeys and an attic. The ground floor has full-height nine-over-nine pane sash windows recessed from the façade in plain reveals beneath flat red brick arches, with plain chamfered glazing bars probably of 20th-century date imitating 1835 work. The first floor has six-over-nine pane sashes in flush frames, and the attic contains three-over-six pane sashes in dormer windows set in the hipped roof. It has a brick string course and painted quoins. The east return uses the same proportions and features in three irregularly spaced bays.

The 1901 extension to the east follows the style of the earlier building on the south elevation, with sashes having single lights to their bottom sashes. The north elevation of the wing is mostly blank with a gable to a truncated range of the 17th-century building, removed for the 1964 extension.

The west elevation faces the principal driveway but is far less formal than the south. A two-storey porch dating from 1835 projects from the façade. The entrance has a pair of doors each with three raised moulded panels beneath a fanlight within a gauged brick arch, above which a plaque with the REME crest has been applied. The porch has six-over-six pane sash windows on the first floor front elevation and on the ground floor returns, with late 20th-century replacements. It has a hipped tiled roof. To the right is a wide chimney stack also dating from 1835; the string course continues from the south elevation as far as the porch. To the left of the porch on the ground floor is a Gothic Revival six-light window with stone mullions and transoms and a wide brick relieving arch; above are two adjoining six-over-six pane sash windows. There is a recessed two-bay section to the left rebuilt in the mid-20th century with sash windows and a wide stack at the junction with the earlier building.

The entrance opens into a baronial hallway decorated in Jacobean-revival style, fully panelled with a large inglenook fireplace and exposed timbered ceilings. The Gothic Revival window on the west elevation lights the space, and another reused Gothic window with stained glass to the east overlooks a light well. The internal double doors of the porch are half glazed and leaded with coloured glass in 1835 Gothick manner. The hall, the Oak Room and principal first-floor rooms are panelled in oak with relief panelling, heraldic devices and decorative motifs, some reused from the Jacobean period but with later embellishment. The hall panelling includes incised moulded pilasters and strapwork panels with recurrent decorative motifs, reused carved overmantels and carved panels. The deep inglenook fireplace has seating lined with a balustraded rail, with a chimneypiece bearing carved grotesque figures supporting the mantelshelf; the overmantel is of square panels interspersed with figures and decorative panels, lined in Delft-style tiles. The Oak Room is lined in plain oak panelling to cornice height with a moulded frieze and an elaborately carved chimneypiece, much of which is 19th-century work, lined in blue Delft tiles.

The drawing room has plaster panelling with moulded cornices and ceiling roses; walls are fully lined in fielded panelling in 18th-century manner. The fireplace has a moulded overmantel echoing the wall pattern, a moulded marble surround and Chinoiserie tiles. Door architraves are fluted with paterae in the corners; doors are of six moulded panels. Windows have simple chamfered glazing bars echoing the 1835 internal front doors, with panelled shutters and linings.

The closed-string staircase has square-section newel posts, closely-spaced twisted balusters and a deep moulded handrail. The stair hall has the same plaster panelling as the adjacent drawing room.

The library is a relatively modest room with a carved and moulded timber chimneypiece, picture rail, plain coving and a mid-20th-century ceiling rose. It has a heavily moulded built-in bookcase with floral and fruit decoration. The lounge has plaster panelling with a recessed alcove containing an elaborate chimneypiece with heraldic symbols and figures, with a coffered ceiling above.

Two principal rooms occupy the south side of the first floor, fully lined in plain small panelling, some of which is modern replication, with doors concealed within it. The south-east room has a particularly ornate Jacobean chimneypiece incorporating carved figures, moulded panels and heraldic devices, with the overmantel supported on paired Ionic columns and a stone fireplace with a four-centre arched opening with moulded spandrels.

At the head of the stairs on the first floor are a pair of moulded 18th-century doorcases with two-panel doors. The 18th-century stair to the attic has square-section newels, turned balusters and a heavy moulded rail. The 19th-century rear stair has a closed string, square newels, slender turned balusters and a simple shaped handrail.

Above the entrance hall is a low, windowless room known as the 'Priest's Hole', though unlikely ever to have functioned as such. A section of stud wall is visible, and it contains a late 18th-century or early 19th-century fireplace with a simple timber surround and iron grate. The late 17th-century or early 18th-century side-purlin roof structure is visible in some of the attic rooms and shows evidence of replacement timbers.