Somerset House

Somerset House is a former town mansion, now divided into shops and offices, located on the south side of Guildford High Street. It was built in the late 17th century, possibly around 1700, for Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and has undergone alterations in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including an interior rearrangement in 1847.

The building is constructed of purple/brown brick in Flemish bond on the right half of the front and the right hand return front, with a wooden eaves cornice and a hipped, plain-tiled roof. It has two storeys and attics with two segmentally-pedimented dormers containing ribbed-roof casements. Multiple stacks rise from the left of the centre, with one stack rebuilt at the left end. The symmetrical seven-bay front features a central projecting bay with a Dutch gable and pediment, accented by a giant order of ribbed, gauged brick on channelled plinths and a pulvinated frieze above. Plat bands are positioned over the ground and first floors. An oculus is set within the gable, featuring decorative roundel glazing and a gauged-brick surround, with a string course rising up to enclose it. A round-arched, glazing-bar sash window is located on the first floor below the oculus, detailed with a scrolled gauged-brick architrave surround and casement doors forming the lower half, with decorative quartered roundel and shouldered lights above. Casement doors open onto a small balcony with wrought-iron brackets, decorative railings, a central, S-scrolled roundel panel and flanking S panels with twisted railings between and at the corners. Double-glazed doors are accessed via a sedan-style staircase, i.e., two side flights to a central landing, featuring similar scrolled ironwork with swept ends to the balustrade, spiral standards, and urn finials. A rusticated, stilted-arched opening is positioned below the staircase landing. Three bays flank the central bay on either side, each having flush, 12-pane glazing-bar sash windows under gauged-brick heads on the first floor and 20th-century glass shop fronts below. The right hand return front has blocked windows on both floors, but two windows remain, featuring thicker glazing bars, possibly suggesting an earlier date than the front windows.

The interior includes a fine Imperial staircase, likely relocated during internal rearrangements. This single flight staircase features barley-sugar twist balusters and ribbed square end newels, dividing onto landings on the first floor. A blocked round-arched panel is visible on the landing wall. Octagonal panelling graces the first-floor landing wall, with the upper section panelled with reeded edges. A barrel-vaulted rectangular roof above has a central round panel and end semi-circular panelling, all with reeded edges. Charles Seymour, known as "The Proud Duke," built the house as a convenient stopping-off point between his estates at Petworth and London.