Sarsden House

Sarsden House

A country house of limestone ashlar with rusticated quoins and stone slate roofs, rebuilt for William Walter after a fire in 1689. The main block is square around a central open well, which was later infilled by Humphry Repton around 1796, with projecting wings at right-angles to the rear forming a U-plan. The house is two storeys and attic with a continuous moulded floor band and plinth. A modillion eaves cornice runs across the front, with a Corinthian version featuring egg and dart moulding. The entrance front is arranged in 1:3:1 bays, with the centre section forming a slightly projecting pedimented break with quoins. Windows are glazing bar sashes in eared architraves. A balustraded portico with four pairs of Ionic columns supporting a moulded entablature with triglyph frieze was added to the centre by G.S. Repton in 1823–5. The doorway in the centre is late 17th century with an enriched case decorated with carved garlands and husked wheat to the sides and a bearded head as keystone; consoles to the cornice feature egg and dart moulding. Pedimented dormers (possibly late 17th century) appear in the roof slope to left and right, with a prominent rusticated ridge stack with dentilled capping to the right and an arrow-shaped weathervane behind the ridge to the centre.

The east front extends across nine bays with glazing bar sashes in plain moulded architraves; some windows have been enlarged, including a 15-paned sash to the sixth bay from the left on the first floor. An infilled window appears to the far left on the first floor. A doorway in the sixth bay from the left is similar to the entrance front doorway but retains a segmental broken pediment and a six-panel door (opening to the bottom four panels only) in a fluted pilastered wood surround. Four integral lateral stacks stand far left with rebated shafts—the leftmost has triple rebated shafts, whilst two to the right are paired and rebated—all with moulded capping. A ridge stack matching that on the entrance front stands on the right, with another to the left aligned with the far left integral stack. Eight pedimented dormers are arranged roughly symmetrically in the roof slope. A round-headed chamfered arch with plain entablature forms a continuation of the floor band at right-angles to the left of the third window from the left, linking the house to the north-west corner of the Church of St. James. A late 18th or early 19th century two-storey service range projects at right-angles to the east on the south side and has a hipped roof with plain parapet. It features glazing bar sashes, including a tripartite window on the ground floor to the east, and an integral lateral stack with five rebated shafts on the south side. A single-storey hip-roofed parallel projection on the south also has a tripartite sash window to the east. A flat-roofed porch, probably dating from around 1825, occupies the angle between the service and main ranges.

The west front is arranged in eight slightly irregularly-spaced bays with glazing bar sashes in plain moulded architraves. A full-length balustraded loggia by G.S. Repton is supported on five coupled Ionic columns with single Ionic columns at each end and includes a canted bay window with five glazing bar sashes at the left end. Glazing bar sashes also appear under the loggia, with the left window featuring a panelled extension to the bottom forming a French window. Six pedimented dormers appear in the roof slope with a roughly central rusticated ridge stack with dentilled capping. Attached to the right end and flush with the loggia is a conservatory also added by G.S. Repton on the site of an earlier range. The conservatory has a double-span glass roof concealed by a balustraded parapet at the same level as that of the loggia; nine 32-paned glazing bar sashes appear to the west and four to the south side, all in plain moulded architraves, with wide corner pilasters. The south side presents the U-plan, including the conservatory, to the garden and features glazing bar sashes and pedimented dormers in the roof slope to all ranges.

The interior contains a staircase reached through a doorway in the east front, with an open string featuring three slim irontwist brass balusters to each tread, a mahogany handrail wreathed to the bottom with an irontwist newel, and a simple plaster cove. A round-headed arch leads to a central rotunda, the work of Humphry Repton, which has eight Ionic Roman columns supporting a simple dentilled cornice. A plain twice-sunk coffered dome features plaster guilloche decoration to the ribs, with a stained glass lantern and cortical plain-glazed top light. The entrance hall to the north of the rotunda contains a Roman Doric distyle in antis screen to one side. The morning room to the left of the entrance, largely remodelled by G.S. Repton, has a white marble fireplace with panelled pilasters decorated with husks and a frieze of grapes and spread eagle, along with a double-darted egg and dart plaster cove to the ceiling. The library to the right of the entrance features Corinthian marble columns in antis forming columns to each end, though not to the large bay. It has a white marble fireplace with a frieze depicting Vesuvius erupting by moonlight, probably by G.S. Repton, and a plain plaster cove to the ceiling with delicate guilloche moulding. The library leads to an ante-room on the south, which in turn leads to the drawing room; both have white marble fireplaces. An elaborate white marble fireplace appears in the dining room to the south of the rotunda. The first floor includes a corner of a corridor at the north end with small unadorned groin vaults. Bedrooms are generally very plain with 19th century cornices. Stout butt-purlin trusses, probably dating from 1689, support the roof. The conservatory contains elliptical trellised recesses with wood benches to each end and features cast-iron columns and roof trusses.

An engraving of the north front in Kennett's Parochial Antiquities (1695) shows it originally to have been of 2:3:2 bays with a central pediment carved with foliage in high relief, flanked by oeils de boeuf. Formal gardens lay to the north and west. Further alterations and internal remodelling were carried out by G.S. Repton in 1823–5 for John Langston and his son James Haughton Langston.