Wotton House

Wotton House is a country house, now used as a training and conference centre, located in Wotton on Guildford Road. The building has a complex architectural history spanning from the early 17th century to the late 19th century.

The original structure was built in the early 17th century for the Evelyn family as a timber-framed building with a compact multi-gabled plan and a U-shaped entrance court to the north. This core remains at the heart of the house. The building was extended in the later 17th century and to the east in the 18th century by William Kent. Further extensions and alterations were undertaken in the early 19th century by Francis Edwards, and following a fire, the house was restored and enlarged by Henry Woodyer for John Evelyn in 1877.

The timber-framed core is now entirely clad with brick and terracotta decorations to the entrance front on the north side, cement render on rear extensions with some tile hanging in the gables. Roofs are predominantly plain tiled with some hipped and slate roofs to the rear right.

The entrance front faces north and is two storeys with attics in gable ends of wings. The central range features stone panels in a parapet band and a stone stringcourse over the ground floor. The wings have a plat band over the ground floor and a cornice stringcourse over the first floor on the west, with finials to the gable apexes. Octagonal turrets project from the return walls of the wings beneath ribbed, lead-domed wooden cupolas. Stone-dressed lancet fenestration includes two 4-light mullioned and transomed windows beneath octagonal stacks to the roof ridges. Label mouldings flank the central porch on each floor. Two similar windows appear on the ground floor left of centre, with two smaller windows above over paired, stone-dressed quatrefoils. An 8-light mullioned and transomed window appears on each floor to the right of centre. The courtside of the west wing displays three shaped gables with arrow slit decoration, each above three mezzanine glazing bar sashes and three sashes on the first floor. The mezzanine sashes sit in raised brick flanking scrolls; those to the first floor and two windows on the ground floor are set in brick pattern surrounds imitating shutters. A central door with a ribbed brick Jacobethan-style surround and flat hood on baluster pilasters provides entry. The door itself is genuinely early 17th century, with thick strapwork and decorative panels.

The right-hand (east) wing's courtyard front features three mullioned and transomed first-floor windows with hipped roof dormers above. A two-storey porch occupies the centre, crowned with winged griffins and flanked by stone-capped angle buttresses. A foiled light, mullioned and transomed first-floor window appears with a decorative frieze below, and an arched door surround with stone-dressed flanking lights provides entry. The left-hand return front of the west wing displays two 17th-century gables with 4-light attic windows and 7-light windows on each floor below, with the end two lights shorter.

The rear elevation presents a long, varied front with a gable to the left, a flat-roofed angle bay left of centre belonging to the old house with sash fenestration and flanking front stacks, a gable to the centre, and the 18th-century orangery with 19th-century extensions set back to the right. The orangery features decorative parapet and banded piers dating to the 19th century. Single-storey service buildings extend beyond.

Internally, the Dining Room was formerly the detached orangery, extended to the south by Woodyer. It features a simple panelled ceiling with a central guilloche rose and egg and dart mouldings, and a modillioned Ionic eaves cornice. William Kent added plasterwork wall panels painted in 18th-century Chinese style by Jean Dieudonné Deneux, a Belgian artist, with double panels at the centre in scrolled surrounds and oval bamboo frames with ribbon garlands. Small paintings appear over doors. Pedimented and bracketed door-cases with architrave surrounds lead to panelled doors. A deep niche at one end is flanked by Doric pilasters and covered with a coffered half-dome. Several fragments from the old house survive, including Jacobean and Elizabethan panelled strapwork doors and surrounds, one from the "cloister" and others leading to offices.

Room 14 contains a colonnaded Ionic screen passage at one end with guilloche soffit moulding and end pilasters flanking two central columns. A fluted frieze, dentilled cornice, and end paterae appear above. The end wall is curved. The ante room is in Chambers style with curved end niches beneath diamond panel coffering and shells above doors. Fine curved doors remain in their original architrave surrounds with flat hoods above; they feature a bay leaf garland and fluted frieze.

The Evelyn Library was designed by Woodyer and displays seven bays in high Victorian Gothic style with round pier arcades and cross rib-vaulted roof. Deep foliage capitals crown the columns. Billeted panelling and painted texts appear on walls above arches. Massive coloured marble fireplaces feature flanking columns and crested overmantels in French Baronial style, with steel doors imitating wood panelling.

The Evelyn family has close historical ties to Wotton House. John Evelyn, the diarist, was born here in 1620 and came into possession of the house in 1699 upon his brother's death. Traditionally, the room now occupied by the Deputy Principal's office is identified as Evelyn's birthplace. The house is particularly renowned for its Italian Garden, laid out by Evelyn, which is registered as a Grade II* entry in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Historic Interest in England (Part 40, Surrey).