Compton Park House

SU 03 SW COMPTON CHAMBERLAYNE COMPTON PARK (west side)

1/136 Compton Park House 23.3.60

GV I Country house. C17, rebuilt late C18 by Charles Penruddocke. Dressed limestone, Welsh slate roofs, rendered stacks. Two- storey, 7-window symmetrical east front. Square stone porch with castellated parapet and Tudor-arched doorway, C20 door, three Venetian sash windows either side, first floor has seven 12-pane sashes, good lead rainwater goods, moulded cornice to battlemented parapet. Left return has two sashes to ground and first floors and one 9-pane sash to second floor. Right return has two sashes to ground and first floors; no attic. Courtyard on north side has sashes on all three elevations to ground, first and second floors, north-facing elevation has low Tudor-arched blocked doorway to left. South side has staggered elevations of rear wings; glazed door with St Andrews crosses to glazing bars and pediment on consoles, 12-pane sashes to south side of wing to right, west gable end of this wing has rainwater head dated 1780 and C17 two-light ovolo-mullioned casements to ground, first and second floors, 3- light mullioned casement to attic, tripartite sash to left. Two- storey rear wing to left has 12-pane sashes to ground and first floors, attached 3-bay loggia with double chamfered pointed arches to left. Rear has 6-panelled doors and sashes, buttress with offset to left, attached rear offices and staff accommodation in picturesque late C18 two-storey blocks with sashes and battlemented parapets. Interior: entrance hall with coved ceiling, bolection- moulded fireplace, pairs of 2-panelled doors. Drawing room to left, of c1700 with full panelling and rich carved decoration especially to door architraves and overmantel in Grinling Gibbons tradition, fine plaster ceiling and marble bolection-moulded fireplace, plaster swags over windows, broken segmental pediments over doors with Penruddocke Arms. Dining room to right of hall, in 1780s addition, has fine Adam-style plaster ceiling and fireplace, good door has fluted panels with paterae. Large stair hall with good open-well stairs with two barleytwist balusters per open string tread, carved tread-ends, wide moulded, ramped handrail; probably early C18. Rear breakfast room with shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling, newel wooden stairs at rear, lit by mullioned casements. Small sitting room at south end has full raised panelling, eared fireplace surround with pulvinated frieze, plaster ceiling with scrolled ornament. House acquired by Edward Penruddocke c1600, refitted late C17 and externally rebuilt 1780 by Charles Penruddocke; the family were prominent Royalists during the Civil War. Set in fine parkland with landscaped lake. (Country Life, August 13th, 1910; N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Wiltshire, 1975)

Listing NGR: SU0292230117