Upton House

Upton House is a country house, now partly in office use, located on the south side of Upton Road in Poole. Built in the early 19th century for Christopher Spurrier, Member of Parliament for Bridport, it was enlarged in 1830 by architect John Penistor for Sir Everard Doughty, Baronet.

The building is constructed of unpainted stucco over brick with some Portland stone dressings. It has hipped slate roofs and rendered ridge and lateral chimney stacks, arranged on a central hall plan.

The exterior consists of a basement, two storeys, and an attic, presented as a seven-window range. The central three bays project forward with a pedimented break and feature an Ionic porch at ground-floor level, ornamented with a swagged frieze and blocking cornice. The porch contains a central double-leaf part-glazed door with a fanlight to a round-arched head, flanked by twelve-pane sash windows. The first floor above has similar sashes with incised flat-arched heads and keyblocks, with a circular attic window set within the pediment. The ground and first-floor windows to the bays either side have swagged apron panels and moulded surrounds with keyblocks; the first-floor windows have twelve-pane sashes while the ground-floor sashes display Gothic glazing patterns. The building displays rusticated quoins and rusticated treatment to the pedimented centre, with a storey band, swagged frieze, and moulded stone cornice. The rendered parapet is stone-coped with alternating sections of balustrade and blank upright oval sunk panels. Segmental-headed dormers sit behind the balustrade. The main range is flanked by single-storey quadrant walls framing the forecourt, featuring Ionic colonnades detailed similarly to the porch. The rear walls above the colonnades have similar parapets to the main block, each with a sash window set within an elliptical-arched head and flanked by blank windows.

The right side elevation presents a five-bay composition with a projecting central bay containing sash windows to ground and first floors with round-arched heads and blank side lights, and a circular attic window above within a pedimental gable. The ground floor to either side displays fifteen-pane sash windows, while the first floor has twelve-pane sashes. Basement windows feature small panes and wood lintels. A strong band and swagged frieze, broken by an open-based pediment over the three central bays and continued over the projecting bay as a gable, runs across the elevation. A prominent chimneystack rises above the gable.

The garden front to the south comprises nine bays, with a three-bay centre flanked by shallow three-bay two-storey bows. Full-length windows at ground floor display Gothic glazing patterns, while the first floor has twelve-pane sashes with 19th-century blind boxes. Angle strips with channelled rustication frame the composition, with a swagged frieze, moulded stone cornice, and plain parapet. Four segmental-headed dormers sit behind the parapet.

The ground floor was formerly covered by an iron verandah, of which the floor survives as black and white chequered stone paving punctuated by quatrefoil patterns.

A single-storey attached screen wall of white brick, left with a plain stone-coped parapet concealing offices, is balanced by a wing to the right. A two-bay lean-to building against the front of this wall, possibly originally a conservatory, has a pair of tripartite windows, rendered walls, and a hipped slate roof.

A single-storey service block of white brick with a hipped slate roof is positioned to the rear of the screen wall at basement level. To the right of the garden front stands a single-storey wing with a hipped slate roof behind a plain stone-coped parapet, featuring twelve-pane sashes with gauged brick flat-arched heads, shallow segmental bays to the right end elevation, and segmental-headed dormers behind the parapet.

The interior displays rooms arranged around a full-height, top-lit central hall with lavish detailing. A vestibule behind the porch sits below the principal level, accessed by a flight of six stone steps leading to the inner hall. A Corinthian column screen separates the vestibule from the hall. Iron balustrades with pairs of brass balustrades alternating with wrought-iron panels and a mahogany handrail line the stairs and landing. The steps are flanked by an internal window to the left, lighting the basement, and a glazed door to the right, both with round-arched heads; three stone steps descend to this door. The stone-paved floor and rusticated walls below the principal level are characteristic of the period. The inner hall features a stone-paved floor with black diamond insets. Reeded doorcases with attenuated acanthus capitals frame six-panel mahogany doors with inlaid ebony Greek key patterns above the bottom panels.

A curved cantilever stair rises in an exedra at the right end of the hall. A reeded column screen with acanthus capitals and elliptical arches stands at the head of the stair, with a similar screen at the opposite end of the upper hall. A circular gallery with an iron balustrade enriched with brass Gothic-style cresting surrounds the upper space. The deep core is enriched with swags and bucrania. A ten-sided lantern with a domed glazed roof crowns the composition, with a circular panel to the centre bearing an eagle supporting a chandelier chain.

The Library features fitted bookcases with a concealed door to the hall. A statuary marble chimneypiece displays Roman Doric half-columns with relief panels above bearing profile heads of Ceres to the left and Bacchus to the right, a tablet with a sea goddess grasping dolphins' tails, and anthemion ornament to the frieze. Original pelmets, wallpaper friezes with foliage scrolls, and a deep enriched cove are preserved.

Double-leaf curved mahogany doors to the Drawing Room fold into the walls, reportedly Elliptical Hypotenuse pivot doors that form part of a niche in the Library when closed. The Drawing Room, extended in the late 19th century into the east wing, retains a similar wallpaper frieze to that in the Library. It contains a very fine statuary marble chimneypiece, said to have been made for a palace of Napoleon I, featuring bare-breasted female satyrs flanking the fireplace aperture with ivy garlands supporting baskets of flowers. The central tablet shows a low-relief composition in Greek style with an elderly seated male figure facing a seated female figure and a standing female figure behind her indicating a table holding two jugs and a bowl. The chimneypiece is similar in design to that in the Royal Closet at Buckingham Palace, derived from the Throne Room of Carlton House in marble and bronze, and another at Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, with bronze mounts attributed to Gouthied. The proportions suggest it is English work.

The Garden Hall at the centre of the south front contains a statuary marble chimneypiece with wide flutes to the uprights and a tablet with incised lozenge, together with an original cast-iron grate with brass enrichments. The ceiling core is similar to that in the hall. The Dining Room displays a pair of marbled Corinthian columns to the inner end, originally framing the sideboard and supporting sections of entablature with a swagged frieze. A statuary marble chimneypiece with Roman Doric half-columns, a swagged tablet, and an original grate completes the scheme.

A former Roman Catholic Chapel in the east wing, later converted to a Library and subsequently a Billiard Room, is top-lit by a Soanian-style curved plaster ceiling rising to an octagonal skylight. A 19th-century oak chimneypiece in Jacobean style is present. A dogleg back stair rises from the basement to the attic behind the main stair, accessed by a curved gib door from the inner hall.

An extensive basement is linked to a former detached kitchen in the area behind the quadrant wall. A lower hall sits below the inner hall. The kitchen was later converted to a fives court.

Upton House represents an exceptionally complete and well-appointed Regency mansion, ingeniously planned internally, built for one of Poole's most prominent citizens.