Tyntesfield House, Servants Wing And Chapel

Tyntesfield House, Servants' Wing and Chapel, Wraxall

A large country house built in 1813 for John Seymour, extensively remodelled between 1863 and 1866 by architect John Norton for William Gibbs. Further alterations followed in 1885–89 by Henry Woodyer. The chapel was built in 1873–75 by Arthur Blomfield, with additional changes around 1890. The building is constructed in ashlar with Cotswold stone slate, plain tiled and lead roofs, featuring ashlar octagonal stacks on tall bases.

The house displays an irregular and asymmetrical composition in the High Victorian Gothic Revival style. The south elevation presents an asymmetrical but balanced arrangement, with the core of the older house as a central 3-bay, 3-storey section. This centre projects forward and contains a 3-storey canted bay of 1:4:1 light cross windows with cusped heads and bands of quatrefoils above. Thin octagonal corner turrets frame the composition; a panelled parapet with a tall central 2-light attic window rises to a steeply pitched pyramidal lead roof with ornamental cresting and flanking clustered stacks. The outer bays of the centre terminate in gables with finials; 4-light cross windows sit beneath square hoodmoulds. To the right stands a tourelle supported on a buttress and topped with a conical lead roof. The left bay has a thin octagonal turret and part of a veranda dating to around 1885. The veranda extends along three large 4-centred arches and two small pointed arches in front of the single-storey drawing room wing. This wing features an arcaded parapet, 3-light windows with cusped ogee heads and buttresses terminating in pinnacles. The veranda arches are supported on clustered granite columns with open arcading in the spandrels and a double row of quatrefoils to the parapet. At the east end, the single-storey library wing consists of 3 bays with 3-light Perpendicular style windows beneath hoodmoulds and a pierced quatrefoil parapet.

The east elevation begins with the gable end of the library, featuring a canted bay of 2:4:2 lights with cusped tracery and a pierced quatrefoil parapet with pinnacles. The central part rises 3 storeys with attics in 4 gables containing cusped lancet windows; three 2-storey bay windows display 1:3:1 light cross windows with cusped ogee heads and pierced quatrefoil parapets, dating to 1885. To the left, adjoining the library wing, a corridor projects, ending in a gabled porch with a moulded arch beneath a dripmould, resting on squat granite columns on ashlar plinths. The tympanum bears a carved panel of arms and an inscription. To the north, a double-pitched servants' wing projects with 4 bays of 3-light Gothic style windows, an oriel to the second bay, and a projecting square tower corbelled out at the end.

An archway from the rear of the servants' wing carries an enclosed bridge to the Chapel, which stands in ashlar on a coursed rubble base with a plain tiled roof, crested ridge and open arcaded parapet with pinnacles behind. The chapel details are in Geometrical style, with three 2-light windows to the nave having trefoil heads; buttresses with off-sets between; gable transepts or side chapels project slightly with smaller 2-light windows; a 5-sided apse features blank arcading on the lower part and 2-light windows with deeply cusped circles to the upper part; a rose window lights the west gable; an octagonal tower with spire on an arcaded base rises from the south-west corner.

The interior retains a remarkable number of original fixtures and fittings by Crace, Norton, Blomfield and Woodyer. The porch and entrance corridor have stone vaulted roofs, panelled doors and Minton tiled floors. The Library, dating to the 1860s, features an arch-braced collar beam roof with windbraces, panelled walls and inscribed frieze, and a coloured marble Gothic fireplace with twisted columns and an ogee head. The Dining Room, from the 1880s, contains a stone-carved pointed-arched outer doorway dated 1889, panelled ceiling and dado, parquet floor, and a pink polished granite fireplace in muscular Gothic style with a segmental head and carved wooden overmantel with inset mirror. Lincrusta wallpaper by Morris and Co and 4 octagonal granite piers complete the scheme. The Staircase Hall, from the 1860s but remodelled in the 1880s, contains a large open-well stone staircase with galleries decorated with fleurons and paterae, decorative wrought iron balustrading with twisted columns, a large ashlar fireplace with quatrefoil parapet and pinnacles with inset statues, a large open timber lantern to the roof, and stencilled walls. The Drawing Room has a panelled and stencilled ceiling with elaborate carved frieze now covered by later wallpaper, and a late-nineteenth-century Venetian marble fireplace. The Billiard Room retains panelling including fitted seats and scoreboard, a heated billiard table carved by James Plunket, an inglenook fireplace, and an elaborate timber roof. Smaller rooms contain many important fittings including parquet floors, stencilled walls, and Gothic-style carved or moulded fireplaces, doors and doorcases.

The Chapel interior features a nave with quadripartite rib vaults, all stencilled, and blank arcading to the walls. The stained glass is notably fine, designed by H.E. Wooldridge for the nave and made by Powell's. Mosaic floors and walls of the apse were created by Salviati to Wooldridge's design. Fine decorative ironwork is by Hart, Son, Pearce and Co. Bedrooms, service rooms and servants' rooms retain most original features including doors, doorcases, shutters, skirting boards and plaster ceilings. Many bedrooms preserve their original early-nineteenth-century Tudor Gothic style decoration, particularly in doorcases, doors and marble fireplaces. Most service rooms retain all original fittings and cupboards, some with tiling. A service court to the rear contains various outbuildings including a dog or hound cage with iron bars. The house survives in remarkably good condition with almost all its original Victorian fittings intact. Much of the original hot-air heating and ventilation system also remains.