Haseley Court

Country house of the 14th to 15th centuries, substantially rebuilt in 1710 and extended in 1754.

The main front is constructed of squared coursed limestone with ashlar dressings and an old plain-tile roof. It is an 11-bay elevation divided 2:2:3:2:2, three storeys tall, with a double-depth plan and rear wing. The centre and end sections break forward slightly, finished with rusticated quoins. A heavy cornice rises through the plain parapet and forms a triangular pediment over the central section, topped with 20th-century ball finials. The central entrance is a 6-panel double-leaf door with a moulded stone doorcase featuring a segmental pediment on consoles. The sashes have 12 panes at ground and first floors and 6 panes at second floor, with stone flat arches and projecting keyblocks, all featuring heavy glazing bars. The 1754 extensions to the 7-bay front include some blind sashes.

A 3-bay front to the right is two storeys, with tall full-length sashes at ground floor and casements above. A datestone inscribed 1754 is noted on this section. The rear elevation is irregular and plain except for a Venetian window with stone pilasters, interrupted cornice, and central double-stepped keyblock.

The 2-storey rear wing to the left is 14th to 15th-century in origin and was further Gothicised, probably in the late 18th century. Its 3-window front to the right is divided by heavy stepped buttresses and has a crenellated parapet. The 2- and 3-light stone mullioned windows are probably 15th-century, most being cinquefoiled with round or pointed heads and recessed spandrels, though some are uncusped. One window has ogee lights and may be 14th-century. To the extreme left are cusped single lights and a door in a pointed chamfered arch. Below the parapet are 18th-century paired blind quatrefoils, with a crude triangular pediment over the central first-floor window. In the gable wall is an arched first-floor window of 2 ogee lights under a quatrefoil, which appears early 14th-century but may be an insertion. The courtyard front to the left has a 16th or 17th-century projecting wing with stepped gable flanked by single-storey infill with 4-centred Gothick windows, and a massive clustered brick stack at its junction with the rear wing. To the right, the 2-storey end of the main range has an asymmetrically-placed Gothick bow window with traceried lights under a large round-headed window.

The interior contains a central stone-paved hall with plaster panelling and round-arched openings with egg-and-dart surrounds. The large stone fireplace, dating to about 1710, has a central mask between festoons, a heavy cornice supported on draped consoles, and a scroll-flanked overmantel with broken pediment and finials. It has been attributed to William Townesend of Oxford. To the left, the dining room has fielded panelling, fluted pilasters, and eared architraves. A small room to the rear of the hall displays sumptuous Palladian taste, featuring a Venetian window with Ionic columns, elaborate eared doorcases with triangular pediments, and a marble fireplace with carved wooden surround and side scrolls. The double-height drawing room in the 1754 extension to the right has a deeply-coved ceiling with delicate Adam-style plasterwork and an inlaid marble fireplace. Corresponding to the left, the library has eared architraves curving to a central point, and the Gothick bow window retains fragments of 17th-century painted and stained glass in the tracery lights. Bedrooms have 18th-century cornices; one retains 18th-century wallpaper. An open-well stair behind the hall rises to the second floor with early 17th-century heavy turned balusters and 4-baluster newels. Openings from landings are round arches below oeil-de-boeuf with heavy egg-and-dart moulding. The rear wing contains segmental rear arches to windows with concave chamfers and a long first-floor room with a 20th-century painted trompe l'oeil ceiling by John Fowler.

The house was rescued from post-war dereliction by Mrs. Nancy Lancaster.