Old Alresford House

Old Alresford House is a middle-sized country house built between 1749 and 1751 by William Jones for Admiral Lord Rodney. It is constructed of brick with Bath stone dressings and has slated roofs. The house features three storeys and a basement, with seven bays that include a slightly projecting central three bays and single bay flanking wings at either end. There are single-storey basement service wings on either side at the front, forming a courtyard. The design includes stone string courses at the ground floor, ground floor cill level, and second floor level for the central five bays, along with a second floor cornice for the flanking bays. A tall parapet with coping and a bracketed pediment adorns the central three bays.

Access to the house is via a flight of nine stone steps leading to a central six-panel door set in a doorcase with an arched radiating fanlight. This entrance is framed by a porch featuring two fluted Tower of the Winds columns and pilasters that support an entablature with a bucrania frieze. On either side of the entrance are closely spaced sash windows, followed by a widely spaced sash in the outer two bays, a pattern that is repeated on the other floors. The ground and first floors have twelve-pane sashes, while the second floor has six-paned sashes, all with rubbed brick arches.

Inside, the layout includes a central saloon, now used as a morning room, flanked by dining and drawing rooms, as well as an entrance hall that is accompanied by main and service staircases. The morning room features an original rococo plaster ceiling, with a central panel depicting an eagle discharging thunderbolts and corner medallions representing the seasons. There are also some 18th-century fireplaces and Regency ceilings throughout the house. In the east service wing, there is a chapel and sitting room decorated in neo-classical trompe l'oeil by Robert Jackson, based on designs by Annigoni.

The house is situated at the top of a park that was laid out by Richard Woods in 1764, featuring a lawn and ha-ha in front of the house, with flanking walls of beech and yew that frame the view down to Alresford Pond.