Bowden Park

Bowden Park is a country house, built in 1796 by James Wyatt for Barnard Dickinson, and extended around the 1850s for Captain J.N. Gladstone. Further alterations and remodelling occurred around 1955 by K. Peacock, reducing the 19th-century extensions. The house is constructed of ashlar, with low-pitched slate roofs and ashlar stacks.

The main building is two storeys with a five-window front, with a three-window semi-circular bow that rises on five stone steps and is fronted by five massive detached Ionic columns. A continuous entablature and low parapet run along the roofline. The ground floor features three French windows within architraves, and the first floor has three twelve-pane sash windows with a sill band. The wings on either side share exceptionally detailed design, with broad corner piers and walling slightly recessed from the main facade. Moulded elements include a plinth, a moulded ground floor sill course, and a plain first floor sill band, broken forward at the outer piers. One ground floor window is a six-over-eight-pane tripartite sash in a segmental-headed recessed frame. A first-floor window features finely carved foliage.

The side elevations continue the mouldings, although the entablature frieze is omitted. Five-window ranges contain sashes in architraves. Cornices extend along the length of the ground floor sashes. A matching extension to the right of the south side, added in the 19th century, also features a two-storey design and a central bow. This section includes a projecting end with a ground-floor blank arch, part of an original orangery, and a 19th-century upper floor with a blank recessed panel and incised sundial. A North L-shaped rear wing, appearing largely from around 1950, is in a matching style, with a door within an ornate corniced doorcase, which may have been resited.

The interiors are outstanding, retaining original plasterwork, marble fireplaces, and mahogany doors, all original to Wyatt’s design.

Bowden Park was initially a late 17th-century house built for G. Johnson. The estate was sold in 1751 to E. Dickinson of Monks Park, Corsham, and the house was rebuilt for his son (died 1814). It subsequently passed to the Dickinson Harmer family before being sold in 1849 to Captain Gladstone (1807-63), brother of W. E. Gladstone.