Bailiffscourt Hotel And Country Club

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 04/01/2013

TQ 00 SW 16/347

CLIMPING CLIMPING STREET Bailiffscourt Hotel and Country Club

GII* Hotel and country club,formerly large country house.Built between 1931 and 1935 by Amyas Phillips an 'antiquarian' rather than architect for Lord and Lady Moyne.Built in late Medieval Cotswold style entirely out of salvaged materials from old buildings in many different parts of the country.Built of Somerset limestone with Horsham stone slate roof and stone chimneystacks.Quadrangular plan.Entrance front of two storeys with stone round-headed windows to first floor and ground floor double window with trefoliated head.Large buttresses and large external stone stack.Between these two is a two-light oak window rescued from a derelict building near Muchelney Abbey.The entrance archway was once part of Holditch Priory and the C15 oak door to the entrance hall originally belonged to South Wanborough Church.Left side return has double cusped windows to gable and a series of cambered windows and buttresses. Rear elevation is L shaped with two,three & four-light mullioned windows with leaded lights and four external chimneystacks.Arched door-case with four plank door.Right side contains domestic quarters.This is of chequerwork flint and stone with two gables and mullioned windows.Return has three-light mullioned windows and reused round-headed window.Room to right of entrance hall has deeply chamfered ceiling and tall window seat.Large L-shaped Dining Room has very fine roll-moulded ceiling and oak screen.Four centred arched stone fireplace in Dining Room was moved from a building in Hitchin being destroyed by the local authority.Principal bed chamber on first floor has crown post roof with four crownposts,two part of a salvaged roof and two replicas by Amyas Phillips.There are numerous other examples of reused stone four centred archways,C16 and C17 stone fireplaces and screens,though some screens are probably made up from old floorboards.This is the foremost example of the craze in the Inter War period of new houses made from old materials.(See Clive Aslet "The Last Country Homes"p172 -181.B.O.E. Sussex pp97-98).

Listing NGR: TQ0016000807