Combe Bank

Combe Bank is an early 18th-century Palladian villa, originally built in the second quarter of the 1700s by Roger Morris. It is a five-bay design with two-and-a-half-story side bays, all under low pyramidal roofs. The central two-story section has a balustraded parapet, a pyramidal slated roof, and a central cupola. The windows are sash windows with glazing bars set within moulded architraves that are rusticated on the ground floor, and with pediments in the side bays. The exterior is rendered, with stone quoins and dressings. A ground floor porch and Ionic screen were added around 1900 by Norman Shaw. A similar five-bay design extends to the left return, and a pedimented projecting centre faces the garden.

Several rooms inside retain their original decorations, including chimney pieces, panelling, enriched door and window surrounds, and coved ceilings with ornamental plasterwork. A graceful staircase in a late 18th-century style is also present.

The house was originally built for Colonel John Campbell, later the Duke of Argyle, and was the childhood home of Cardinal Manning. In 1879-1880, Dr William Spottiswoode, the President of the Royal Society, owned the property. He commissioned Walter Crane to redecorate the saloon as a library, creating a richly decorated space with bronze, silver, and gold, along with an early 17th-century Venetian frieze of putti. The fireplace from this period is signed and dated 1880 and remains entirely preserved. A north wing added in 1807 contains a drawing room and ballroom (now a chapel) with decoration in the Adam style by Walter Cave. Following William Spottiswoode's death in 1883, his son Hugh tenanted the house before it was sold in 1906 to Ludwig Mond, a German-Jewish chemist. Mond and his son Robert made significant alterations to the gardens and adapted an early 19th-century stable block for motor vehicle garaging and later as laboratories. In the 1920s, the house was adapted for use as a convent boarding and day school, subsequently re-founded as an independent girls’ day school in 1973.