Hursley House

Hursley House is a large country house dating to 1721-4, possibly designed by John James for the Heathcote family. It was significantly enlarged and remodelled between 1902 and 1903 by A M Mackenzie for Sir George Cooper. The house is constructed of brick with stone dressings, and has a slate roof.

The 18th-century core of the house is two storeys with an attic on a raised basement, consisting of eleven bays with a slightly projecting centre. This central section is flanked by three-bay porticoes on both sides. In 1903, three-bay cross-wings were added to each end, along with a projecting bay and a porte-cochère to the north entrance front, and a glass and stone conservatory at one end. The north entrance front has small six-pane sashes in segmental heads to the basement. A ground-floor string course runs around the building. The centre features a stone porte-cochère with two Doric columns on plinths on each side of double doors within an architrave. A heavy entablature and low parapet enclose steps and lead into the stone Doric portico of the central three bays. The ground floor has four tall eighteen-pane sashes with stone sills. Recessed panels sit above and below the first-floor eighteen-pane sashes, except in the central bays. The wings echo the centre with stone quoins, a basement, and a Doric portico, together with three fifteen-pane sashes on the ground floor and three eighteen-pane sashes above, with an apron below. A stone cornice surmounts the hipped roof, punctuated by pedimented dormers containing twelve-pane sashes. A raised viewing platform with a stone balustrade sits on the centre of the roof, along with large stacks with stone heads at the corners and symmetrically positioned stacks.

Inside, the central hall, dating from 1903, extends the full depth of the house. Originally lined with G Gibbons panelling from Winchester College Chapel, much of this panelling was removed, although some door panels remain, along with other late 17th-century style features which are likely from 1903. Corridors run along the middle of the building from off the central hall. A room to the right of the centre, dating to around 1820, features a neo-classical fireplace with pilasters and a decorated frieze. On the opposite side of the corridor are two small rooms with bolection panelling and overmantles of 17th-century linen fold and arcaded panelling. Further along the wing, a “Wedgewood room” contains reassembled Adam plasterwork and a fireplace. A staircase containing 18th-century elements is found at the end. To the left of the centre on the entrance front is the Library, featuring reused 18th-century panelling. A c.1905 Boudoir is on the opposite side, with 16th-century strapwork panelling and pilasters. A corner room contains an Elizabethan fireplace of carved oolitic limestone with a carved timber overmantle containing “a term atlas and a term caryatid imprisoned in strapwork and a lintel with 4 parts of the world most entertainingly portrayed and provided with a multitude of animals." Adjacent to this is a drawing room with some 18th-century panelling and a fireplace.