Entry Hill House

ENTRY HILL HOUSE

Detached Picturesque villa, now in multiple occupation. Designed c.1835 by Edward Davis (who exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828) with late 20th-century alterations. Built in limestone ashlar with a slate roof.

The house follows an irregular square plan with a central staircase, entered from the south-west and set into a sloping site, with a lower ground floor exposed to the north-west. The composition is complex and Picturesque, featuring casements many with margin panes and some with stopped drips to chamfered stone mullions and transoms, with buttressed elements varying across each elevation. The building comprises two main storeys with a lower ground floor and some attic provision.

The entrance front (south-west facing) has a gabled unit to the left with two-light casements above two-light casements with transom, with margin panes, though the lower part of the ground floor window has been replaced. Shallow angle buttresses rise from a high plinth pierced with two blocked slits; a mid-height offset is carried across as a string course, and double moulding runs to the cornice, crowned by a shouldered gable. To the right, a flight of stone steps in open stone balustrades stopped to octagonal piers leads to a plain four-centred opening with a pair of panelled glazed doors, beneath two and one-light windows. A gabled unit set back further right features a square central bay with a crenellated parapet on an oriel with pointed lights above cusped panels on a deep ogee bracket, over a two-light casement offset to the right, with steel casements to the basement. The return to the right includes a dormer and four cropped stacks, with a brought-forward centre section containing a small two-light window. The ground floor has a three-light oriel on an ogee bracket; some steel casements have been inserted here.

The main garden frontage (north-west facing) rises the full three storeys with attic provision. To the left, a gabled end features a tall diagonal buttress carried up as a stack, with a two-light window above a wide square four-light oriel with very narrow returns, set on a moulded bracket and topped by a high crenellated parapet to a moulded cornice with bold florets. A lean-to glazed conservatory covers the window and door below. To the right, a two-window range with a crenellated parapet and corner buttresses sits beneath a late 20th-century dormer; two-light windows at each main level sit above two paired small arched lights with small-pane casements in the lower ground floor. A slightly projecting unit continues from the gabled end, maintaining the detailing seen on the front. The return to the left has a crenellated parapet above three two-light windows at two levels and three pairs of small arched lights to the lower ground floor, with a gabled projecting wing corresponding to the set-back on the front, featuring diagonal buttresses, a large square bay, and French doors to the basement.

The interior staircase hall—the only part inspected—contains a stone central well stair with arched screens and a blind triple arcade at the first landing beneath a rectangular skylight carried on side vaults.

Entry Hill House represents a highly characterful example of Baronial Gothic adapted from grander country houses for suburban use. It was one of several romantically conceived villas developed in the late Georgian period on this well-wooded site. Davis showed designs for seventeen houses here at the 1828 Royal Academy exhibition, but only five were constructed. This speculative development, funded by lawyer Richard Else, was laid out off the old Warminster Road. Stylistically advanced, these houses form an interesting counterpart to Goodridge's work on Bathwick Hill. Entry Hill House was the largest in the group.