Willsbridge Castle

Willsbridge Castle, originally known as Willsbridge House, was built around 1730 for John Pearsall. Subsequent crenellations and turrets were added after 1851 by Captain John Shatton. The house occupies a prominent hillside location. It is a three-storey building, crenellated with angle turrets and a crenellated parapet. The exterior is rendered, with the exception of the castellation, plinth, moulded cornice, parapet, and buttresses. The roof is hipped and covered in slate, and the building has three bays by three bays. The main entrance front features buttresses with two set-offs flanking the entrance bay, a pilastered portico with a cornice, and double six-panel doors with shaped fielded panels, the lower two being reeded. Most windows are sash windows with glazing bars. Second-floor windows are plain two-light casements within cock-bead surrounds. Outer first and ground floor windows are tripartite in a Venetian style, with the centre light square-headed on the first floor and with intersecting glazing on the ground floor. Some panelled shutters are present. The applied “castle” features include corner turrets with three set-offs and blind arrow loops framed by cill and lintel bands. The south-east front has plate glass sash windows; the two outer ground floor windows are angled bays. The left-hand turret is thicker than the others and has corbels for a wall-walk. Set back to the left is a further two-bay Victorian extension, gabled with a stepped buttress that terminates at a gate pier for the former stable yard. A single-storey, rendered and crenellated extension is set back on the north-east front, with three bays and glazing bar sashes terminating in an angled open turret with cross arrow loops in two stages. This extension also has a plinth, plat-bands and a plain door surround with a blank shield above the door. Inside, a ground floor room on the south-east side retains mid-18th century panelled dado and overmantel panelling and a stone stair with mid-19th century style plain cast-iron balusters with knops, a mahogany handrail, and a Perpendicular style two-light window. The interior has undergone considerable alterations.