Rousham House

ROUSHAM HOUSE

A country house built around 1635 for Sir Robert Dormer, remodelled in the 1738-40s by William Kent for General James Dormer, and enlarged around 1860 by William St. Aubyn.

The house is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings, a lead roof, and hipped Welsh slate roofs to the side wings, with moulded stone ashlar stacks. It follows a 17th-century H-plan with wings flanking the hall. Kent added side wings and St. Aubyn added a rear block.

The front elevation is a Jacobean 3-storey, 7-window range with canted bays to the front of the side wings and a crenellated parapet. A 3-storey porch features a round-arched doorway and a 17th-century studded inner door with musket holes. The windows are chamfered stone-mullioned; Kent removed the ground and first-floor mullions and his octagonal glazing is retained in the windows to the right, while around 1860 plate-glass sashes were inserted. An ogee cupola by Kent crowns the roof. St. Aubyn added a Jacobean-style block to the rear.

Kent's 2-storey pavilions flank the 17th-century house. On the garden side, canted bay windows with octagonal glazing are set in Jacobean-style mullioned and transomed windows, flanked by Gothick ogee niches containing statues of classical subjects by Henry Cheere. A dentilled cornice with small pediments runs across. These pavilions are joined to the house by one-storey corridors with crested parapets, containing marble busts by Scheemakers and an urn set in ogee niches, and a 17th-century studded door with musket holes set in a chamfered Tudor-arched doorway.

Interior features include two mid-17th-century staircases with turned balusters and lantern finials set on newels, and a fine mid-17th-century panelled room on the first floor of the west wing.

The Parlour in the east wing was designed by William Kent as a panelled room with elaborately-moulded doorcases. It contains a richly carved Baroque overmantel by John Marden, decorated with a Medusa's head and swags, with swans flanking a painting of Mountebanks by Van Laer. The painted ceiling by Kent depicts romantic landscapes and arabesques, with Ceres, Bacchus and Venus in the central medallion. Carved wall brackets made by Kent display General Dormer's collection of Italian bronzes. The Parlour is a rare and complete example of Kent's work.

The Library in the west wing has a vaulted Moorish ceiling and a Gothic frieze to the fireplace by Kent; the overmantel frames a portrait of General Dormer by Van Loo, and the frieze contains a relief of Leda and the Swan by Rusconi. Around 1760, Thomas Roberts of Oxford converted the Library into a Drawing Room, adding elaborate rococo plasterwork frames for doorcases, windows and portraits, with eagles set in broken pediments.

The house and its gardens, landscaped by Kent, remain owned by the Cottrell-Dormer family. The gardens are regarded as the most complete and typical of William Kent's gardens and of prime importance as the most complete early example of informal landscape design.