Gournay Court

Gournay Court is a country house dating back to approximately 1600, with significant additions around 1650. Further alterations and restorations occurred between 1910-1913 and 1928-1954. The building is constructed of squared and coursed red sandstone with freestone dressings, copings, and slate roofs, featuring ashlar stacks. The original 17th-century building schemes created a main block, later extended with a rear wing to form an L-shaped plan.

The north front is grand and symmetrical, two storeys high with attics and a cellar, and comprises seven bays. All windows are cross-mullioned with small leaded panes, with those in the attic storey set within four gables and under flat hoodmoulds. A central, advanced two-storey porch features a glazed bay and a balcony above, with a strapwork balustrade leading to the Long Gallery, which has a basket-handled arch topped by a curvilinear gable and a spoked oval window. The doorway is framed by attached Roman Doric columns and a triglyph frieze, overlooking a Tudor arched entrance displaying the Buckland and Phelips armorial shields in the spandrels. A six-light glazed bay above is flanked by Ionic columns on bases with carved scrolls proclaiming 'Alltogether Vanity'.

Inside the porch are semi-circular niches with seats, and a studded plank two-leaf door. The interior includes a ground floor room with a Tudor arched fireplace and panelling brought from Beaudesert, Staffordshire, after 1932. Another ground floor room features a fine Tudor arched fireplace with a grand strapwork overmantel. An early 17th-century staircase has a round arched balustrade, fruit clusters and vases on the newel posts, and decorative pendants. The dining room in the rear wing has a fireplace with stop-fluted jambs and an embattled mantlepiece. A first-floor bedroom boasts a fine early 17th-century fireplace with strapwork, displaying a royal coat of arms and caryatids, as well as panelled walls and a plaster ceiling roundel of oak leaves and ties dating from the 1650s. The four-bay Long Gallery, extending to the attic, has a ribbed coved roof and acorn bosses.

The rear wing is two storeys high, with matching cross-mullioned windows and several gabled dormers from 1910. External features include a moulded plinth course, moulded stringcourses to the ground and first floors, fine lead downpipes and rainwater heads, ball finials to gable ends, and tall stacks set on the diagonal in pairs. The house was originally built by Francis Buckland.