Compton Park House

Compton Park House is a country house located in Compton Chamberlayne, dating back to the 17th century, with a substantial rebuilding in the late 18th century by Charles Penruddocke. It is constructed of dressed limestone with Welsh slate roofs and rendered stacks.

The east front is symmetrical, featuring two stories and seven windows. A square stone porch with a castellated parapet and a Tudor-arched doorway (with a 20th-century door) stands centrally, flanked by three Venetian sash windows. The first floor has seven 12-pane sashes. Fine lead rainwater goods run along the roof, and a moulded cornice tops the battlemented parapet. The left return has two sashes to both the ground and first floors, and one 9-pane sash to the second floor. The right return features two sashes on the ground and first floors, with no attic.

A courtyard on the north side is surrounded by sashes on all three elevations over ground, first, and second floors. A low, Tudor-arched blocked doorway is located to the left of the north-facing elevation. The south side of the house presents staggered elevations of rear wings. A glazed door with St. Andrew’s crosses in the glazing bars and a pediment on consoles leads into one wing, and 12-pane sashes are visible to the south side of a wing to the right. The west gable end of this wing displays a rainwater head dated 1780, along with 17th-century two-light ovolo-mullioned casements to the ground, first, and second floors, and a three-light mullioned casement to the attic. A tripartite sash window is also present. A two-story rear wing to the left has 12-pane sashes on both the ground and first floors, while an attached three-bay loggia with double-chamfered pointed arches is positioned to the left. The rear elevation incorporates 6-panelled doors and sashes, as well as a buttress with an offset to the left. Attached rear offices and staff accommodation are also present, constructed in picturesque two-story blocks dating to the late 18th century, with sashes and battlemented parapets.

The interior of the house includes an entrance hall with a coved ceiling, a bolection-moulded fireplace, and pairs of two-panelled doors. The drawing room, dating to around 1700, features full panelling and rich carved decoration in the tradition of Grinling Gibbons, including door architraves and the overmantel. It also boasts a fine plaster ceiling and a marble bolection-moulded fireplace, plaster swags over the windows, and broken segmental pediments over the doors bearing the Penruddocke Arms. The dining room, added in the 1780s, has a fine Adam-style plaster ceiling and fireplace, with a door featuring fluted panels and paterae. A large stair hall contains a good open-well staircase with two barleytwist balusters per open string tread, carved tread-ends, a wide moulded ramped handrail, likely dating to the early 18th century. A rear breakfast room has a shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling and newel wooden stairs. A small sitting room to the south features full raised panelling, an eared fireplace surround with a pulvinated frieze, and a plaster ceiling with scrolled ornament.

The house was acquired by Edward Penruddocke around 1600, refitted in the late 17th century, and externally rebuilt in 1780 by Charles Penruddocke. The Penruddocke family were prominent Royalists during the Civil War. The house is set within fine parkland, including a landscaped lake.