Waterperry House And Attached Wall

WATERPERRY SP60NW 6/201 Waterperry House and attached 18/07/63 wall (Formerly listed as Waterperry Horticultural School)

GV II*

Mansion, now college. c.1713 for Sir John Curson, incorporating late C17 wing: altered c.1820 for Henley family. Stucco with limestone ashlar dressings; brick; squared coursed limestone rubble; Welsh-slate and old plain-tile roofs. Double-depth plan with U-plan rear wing. 3 storeys with 2-storey rear wing. Main block, with heavy cornice, balustraded parapet and projecting quoins, has 7-window front, the central bay breaking forward slightly, with a large Ionic-mullioned Venetian window at first floor above an Ionic tetrastyle balustraded portico beneath which is a double-leaf 6-panel door flanked by narrow lights set in chamfered rustication. 6-window return walls have central 2 bays breaking forward, more prominently to left. Rear wall includes a 3-storey bowed section in English-bond brickwork. Tiled hipped roof. Service range to rear incorporates the earlier rubble house, facing to right, which has a central 6-panel door and short projecting wings at each end of the range, that to left further extended and incorporating a stone arched doorway of 2 chamfered orders which may be C14. At first floor in the front and wings are leaded wood-framed cross windows, and the rear has rows of similar windows on both floors. Left wing has stucco oval set between 4 fleurs-de-lys which contains the date 1705. Hipped roof (which is slated at the front and tiled elsewhere, has a ridge stack to right of centre and a stack on the flush rear gable of the left wing which originally extended to the rear). Rear hopper head is dated 1799. Interior: Main block has columned hall leading to stair hall containing late C18/early C19 open-well stair with ramped and wreathed handrail; arched window contains mostly-continental C16 and C17 painted glass. Back stair has late C17 twisted balusters and ramped handrail, probably a C18 re-arrangement. Early c18 panelled room has blocked arched doorway flanked by fluted pilasters supporting an entablature incorporating the dentil cornice. C17 wing has large internal stack and butt-purlin roof. Brick and rubble wall runs from rear wing to Church of St. Mary (q.v.). (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.V, p.296; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire. p,828),

Listing NGR: SP6293706283