Highworth Court Highworth House

Town house, now two houses, dating from around the 1720s with later alterations.

The main front block (Highworth Court) is constructed in Flemish bond brick with fine gauged and rubbed dressings. The right-hand return is cement rendered, while the rear wing is limestone rubble with brick quoins and dressings. The roof is Welsh slate, hipped behind a parapet to the front and gabled to the rear, with brick stacks.

The building has an L-shaped plan. Highworth Court forms the front block with two principal ground-floor rooms heated by rear lateral stacks and a central projecting rear stair turret. The rear former service wing, now Highworth House, is of two-room plan with axial and rear stacks. This wing has an early 19th-century one-room extension to the rear, extended in turn by a late 19th-century conservatory. A projecting left-hand bay with carriage entrance now forms part of Highworth House, which also has a flat-roofed 1956 extension to its right-hand (north) wall, replacing an earlier outshot.

Highworth Court is three storeys high. Its five-bay front features ashlar quoins and triple keys to segmental-arched windows with early 19th-century 6/6-pane sashes. The keys break into plat bands which are returned to the side elevations. Window aprons and rectangular and central oval dies to the parapet are in gauged and rubbed brickwork. A segmental-arched doorway with a mid to late 19th-century six-panelled door and overlight adjoins a left-hand inserted late 19th-century bay window. The rear stair turret has an early 18th-century semi-circular arched sash with thick glazing bars set above an early 19th-century sash. The left-hand return features half-glazed panelled doors in an inserted mid-19th-century opening. A two-storey bay set back to the left has a blind window over the former carriage arch, with ashlar impost blocks and keystone touching the brick plat band. The archway beneath gives entry to the rear wing.

Highworth House is two storeys with an early 19th-century three-storey extension to the rear. The left-hand (south) elevation has an early 18th-century closet set over an early to mid-19th-century canted bay window with glazing bar sashes (10/10-pane to the centre). The central section features a fine early 18th-century three-light wood-mullioned first-floor window with leaded lights and wrought-iron fittings to the central opening casement, set above a mid-20th-century canted bay window (fronting an 18th-century opening with segmental arch) and a 20th-century horned sash with a late 19th-century lintel. The left-hand (west) end has a timber lintel over a 6/6-pane first-floor sash above a late 19th-century canted bay window. Timber lintels occur over other openings, including a similar fine early 18th-century window with leaded lights to the right-hand (north) return. A late 19th-century conservatory with porch and lantern adjoins the building.

Highworth Court retains early 18th-century features including panelled ground-floor rooms and a fine staircase with fluted balusters and sweeping handrail, though mid-19th-century alterations include an inserted marble fireplace.

Highworth House includes transverse beams to ground-floor rooms. Early 18th and 19th-century panelled doors in moulded architraves are present, including a four-panelled 18th-century door to the closet. The staircase to the front was probably rebuilt in the 20th century with late 19th-century reset turned newels but retains 18th-century turned balusters and closed string. A ground-floor central room has a reset early 18th-century stone fireplace with beaded architrave. The conservatory features a decorative tile floor, probably Minton or Jackfield ware.