Swangrove House, Garden Walls, 4 Corner Pavilions And Gate Piers

HAWKESBURY C.P. SWANGROVE ST 78 NE 4/176 Swangrove House, 17.9.52 garden walls a 4 corner pavilions and gate piers

G.V. I A 'maison de plaisance'. Dated "1703", byWilliam Killigrew of Bath. Fine ashlar, render to side and near elevations; slate roofs with coped raised verges; diagonal ashlar stacks with moulded cornice. Cotswold vernacular style but handled with considerable skill and with Palladian overtones. 2 storeys, cellars and attics in 2 steep, coped, stone gables with a flat roofed room between; lower 2 storey wings; embattled parapet, formerly with a balustrade to the wings. 1 : 3 : 1 bays; tall cross windows on first floor of centre; 2-light casements elsewhere; keyed oval windows in apex of gables; continuous string over ground and first floor, stepped up over first floor windows in centre; lead cresting to centre of string course. A straight flight of steps (with balusters, arms on the posts and a moulded handrail) leads up to front door on the first floor; 6 panel door under a 2-light overlight and in a bolection moulded surround; all under a segmental pediment which rises from the string course. Lead downpipes at the junctions between the centre and wings; portcullis badge and date '1703' to the rainwater heads. Rear elevation. Ground floor: 3 doors in bolection moulded surrounds, flat entablature over outer doors (left one blocked), pediment to central door. First floor: 3 cross windows under drip moulds. 4 detached corner pavilions; ashlar with pyramidal Cotwold stone slate roof with ball finials and moulded eaves cornice; single storey; plank doors in blection surrounds; one keyed oval window to each side. Low coped rubble walls join the pavilions and the house and enclose the site: ashlar gate piers with ball finials south. Interior: Ground floor: stop chamfered and moulded beams and cornice; oak staircase with turned balusters. Closed string and moulded handrail - the staircase continues up to the attic. First floor. Central blue room, fully panelled with raised and fielded panels; on the west wall is a bolection moulded fire surround and to either side is a cupboard with glazed doors; that to the right contains a buffet, a marble basin set on a pedestal and recessed in a marble niche which has the mask of a mandarin with a tap in his mouth over the basin (connected to a cistern above and fed by a pumphouse in the adjacent wood). Attic. Central panelled room of great importance as an intact and unrestored example of early C18th marbling and japanning; the door and dado cornice have gold leaf chinoiseries insects, birds and background on a black background; the wall panels formerly held paper or brocade. The designs for the chinoiserie may be traced to Stalker and Parker. A treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, 1688. (Lisa White, personal communication). Country Life 16.XII,1939. Gomme, A forthcoming publication in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.

Listing NGR: ST7970585752