Somerset House

TQ 0049NW GUILDFORD HIGH STREET (South Side)

6/118 Nos 220, 222, 224 1/5/53 and 226 (Somerset House) (Formerly listed as Nos 222 and 226) GV I

Former Town Mansion, now divided up into shops and offices. Late C17/possibly c.1700, built for Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset; altered in C18, C19 (to rear) and C20 on the ground floor. Interiors re-arranged in 1847. Good quality purple/brown brick laid in Flemish bond on right half of front and on right hand return front, with wooden eaves cornice above and hipped plain-tiled roof. Two storeys and attics under two segmentally-pedimented, ribbed-roof casement dormers, one either side of centre. Cross-ridge multiple stacks to left of centre, rebuilt stack to left end. Symmetrical 7 bay front around a central projecting,quoined bay under Dutch gable and pediment and with giant pilaster order of ribbed gauged- brick on channelled plinths and with pulvinated frieze above. Plat bands over ground and first floors. Central oculus in gable with decorative roundel glazing and gauged-brick surround, string course rising up from frieze below to enclose it. Round-arched glazing-bar sash window on first floor below with scrolled gauged- brick architrave surround and casement doors to lower half, decorative quartered roundel and shouldered lights above. Casement doors open onto small balcony with wrought-iron brackets below and decorative railings in front, central,S-scrolled roundel panel and flanking S panels with twisted railings between and on corners. Double,glazed,doors below in architrave surround, approached up stairs of sedan type i.e. two side flights to central landing, with similar scrolled iron panel to centre of railings with swept ends to balustrade, spiral standards and urn finials. Rusticated stilted-arched opening below stair landing. Three bays either side with flush, 12-pane,glazing-bar sash windows under gauged-brick heads on the first floor and C20 glass shop fronts below. Right hand return front - blocked windows on both floors but two windows survive with thicker glazing bars possibly suggesting earlier date than front windows. Interior:- fine Imperial staircase, probably moved in various internal re-organizations. Single flight up with barley-sugar twist balusters and ribbed square end newels. Stairs divide to landings on first floor with blocked round- arched panel on landing wall. Open archway formerly flanked the stairway on the ground floor. Octagonal panelling on first floor landing wall with upper landing panelled with reeded edges. Barrel-vaulted rectangular roof above with central round panel and end semi-circular panelling all with reeded edges. Charles Seymour, known as "The Proud Duke" built the house as a stopping-off point on the journey from his estates at Petworth to London.

M. ALEXANDER: VINTAGE GUILDFORD (1978) PEVSNER: BUILDINGS OF ENGLAND, SURREY (1971) p.284.

Listing NGR: TQ0003349596