Chastleton House

Chastleton House is a country house built between 1603 and 1618 for Walter Jones, possibly by Robert Smythson, with minor later additions and alterations. It is constructed of regularly coursed and dressed marl stone rubble with limestone ashlar dressings and alternating angle quoins, with slate roofs.

The house follows a basic square plan around a small central courtyard, rising three storeys and an attic over a basement. It features a moulded plinth, string courses, and moulded coping to parapets and stepped gables.

The south front is the most dramatic elevation. It displays five narrow gables receding from the centre, flanked by massive projecting staircase towers. The two projecting central bays are pushed closely together to create strong vertical emphasis, enhanced by the line of stepped gables and pinnacles. Windows throughout are mullioned and transomed with leaded lights, some latticed. Those on the second floor of the gables have moulded entablatures, all with ovolo moulding. The staircase projections and outer gables contain three-light windows, while the projecting inner gables have three-light windows on the second floor and four-light windows on the first floor. The centre gable displays five-light windows on the ground and first floors, with large four-by-three-light windows to the ground floor of the projecting inner gables. The centre gable features a pedimented two-light mullioned window with decorative finial to the attic. Armorial shields ornament the apexes of the projecting inner gables, with decorative roundels to the outer gables. Integral ashlar end stacks with paired and rebated shafts and three diagonal stacks behind the centre gable feature moulded dripstones and capping. The staircase projections have embattled parapets. The entrance is set in the right wall of the left projecting inner gable, approached by a straight flight of six steps with ball finials to top and bottom. The doorcase is fluted and pilastered with a fluted frieze, cornice, and strapwork-headed arch with hollow spandrels, fitted with early 19th-century half-glazed double doors. Lead downpipes with dated rainwater heads appear on the entrance front; one on the left gable is dated "1771" and one at the right corner is dated "1794".

The east side is dominated by the staircase projection, with mullioned and transomed windows to gables on either side. A moulded Tudor-arched doorway to the staircase projection is set in the angle with the main range. Lead downpipes with dated rainwater heads are present.

The north side is divided into five bays, with the centre gable forming a rectangular projection with entasis. Mullioned and transomed windows are throughout, all of four lights (those to the second floor with dripstones) except for one three-light window to each side of the projection on the ground floor, one two-light window, and five-light windows to the projection on the first and second floors respectively. Four-light mullion windows light the outer bays of the basement, with two-light mullion windows flanking the projection. The apexes of the gables are decorated with ashlar stepping and finials, the centre featuring a scalloped shell above a window and the outer gables with decorative roundels. Lead downpipes with rainwater heads are present.

The west side, like the east, is dominated by the staircase projection, with mullioned and transomed windows to gables and lead downpipes with dated rainwater heads. An external stack with four detached and grouped ashlar diagonal shafts with moulded dripstones and capping stands to the left of the tower.

The interior contains lavish decoration based on contemporary Flemish pattern books, executed possibly by craftsmen employed at Oxford colleges. The hall follows the traditional medieval pattern with entrance through a screens passage at one end, featuring elaborate strapwork cresting and a frieze of acanthus scrolls. The lower part is panelled with two arches flanked by ornate half-columns with satyrs carved in the spandrels. The hall itself has a plain stone fireplace and panelled walls with a frieze of dragons and grotesques at the dais end. Behind this lies a small panelled parlour with blind arcading to the overmantel. The great parlour at the back of the house features a plaster frieze of winged chimaeras and a ribbed plaster ceiling with fleur-de-lys ornamentation. The staircase in the east projection, with treads renewed around 1830, is otherwise original, featuring turned balusters to a carved open string, moulded handrail, and carved square newels with pierced obelisk finials and similar pendants. A similar open well staircase is present in the west projection. The great chamber on the first floor has panelled walls with fluted pilasters, each main panel subdivided into sections decorated with blind arcading, foliage, and strapwork. A frieze of caryatids divides 24 painted panels of sybils and prophets. The ceiling features pendants and ribs decorated with vine trails, with spaces filled with foliage and flowers in low relief. A carved and painted stone fireplace, flanked by fluted columns, bears an overmantel with strapwork cartouches and the arms of Walter Jones and his wife, Eleanor Pope. Opening from this room is the middle chamber, a small room with 18th-century panelling and a 17th-century frieze of pomegranates, with an original stone fireplace bearing the arms of Henry Jones and his wife, Ann Fettiplace. In a bedroom, a ribbed ceiling with a great central pendant and an Italianate frieze of satyrs, lions, and scrolls is accompanied by a wooden overmantel with Fettiplace arms and two figures in niches. Another first-floor room features panelling with fluted pilasters and a frieze of blind arches, with a fireplace with Ionic and Corinthian columns in imitation marble and an overmantel bearing Sheldon arms and two standing figures. The long gallery running the full length of the top storey at the back of the house has a richly plastered barrel-vaulted ceiling with a pattern of interlacing ribs decorated with daisies, rosettes, and fleur-de-lys. A frieze of acorns runs above panelled walls, with grotesque heads at the west end. The overmantel features two strapwork panels divided by caryatids. The principal rooms were originally decorated with tapestries, few of which survive, and much of the panelling and plasterwork was designed to fit around them.