The Tortoise House, Wotton House is a Grade II listed building in the Mole Valley local planning authority area, England. First listed on 7 February 1972. Tortoise house.
The Tortoise House, Wotton House
- WRENN ID
- last-kitchen-solstice
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Mole Valley
- Constituency
- Dorking and Horley MP: Chris Coghlan (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 7 February 1972
- Type
- Tortoise house
- Address
- The Tortoise House, Wotton House, Guildford Road
- OS grid reference
- TQ 120 469
- Coordinates
- 51.21051, -0.3971
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Tortoise House at Wotton House is a structure built around 1820-1830. It is made of Portland stone, rubblestone, and brick, with a wooden superstructure and a tiled roof. The building is rectangular and has two storeys. It features an Ionic garden temple design with four bays by two, supported by three Ionic columns on the sides and Ionic pilaster piers at the ends, which hold up an architrave frieze and cornice. The upper storey has open sides divided into bays by thin wooden piers with attached Corinthian pilasters. It has a flat roof with overhanging eaves. The upper floor was likely used as a viewing platform for the tortoises that lived in a pool in front of the temple. Currently, the structure is in a ruinous and nearly roofless condition. The Tortoise House is listed as one of the items in the Gardens of Wotton House, which is included in the "Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England: Part 40 Surrey" at Grade II*.
Local climate
The Tortoise House, Wotton House receives an average of 740 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 75% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 57% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 65% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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