Wiltshire Area Health Authority Headquarters is a Grade II listed building in the Wiltshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 22 June 1978. House, offices.
Wiltshire Area Health Authority Headquarters
- WRENN ID
- north-paling-bracken
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Wiltshire
- Constituency
- Chippenham MP: Sarah Gibson (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 22 June 1978
- Type
- House, offices
- Address
- Wiltshire Area Health Authority Headquarters, 53, Rowden Hill, Chippenham
- OS grid reference
- ST 911 726
- Coordinates
- 51.4529, -2.12804
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Wiltshire Area Health Authority Headquarters is a large house, now used as offices, built around 1870. It features limestone ashlar construction and a hipped slate roof with moulded ashlar stacks on both the front slope and the rear. The building showcases an eclectic architectural style, primarily Classical with some Rundbogen details, and has an L-shaped plan with a 20th-century wing added to the rear.
The exterior consists of two storeys with a symmetrical three-window arrangement. It has plate-glass sash windows. The entrance facade, facing north, is adorned with chamfered rusticated quoins, an eaves band, a platband, and a plinth, topped with a modillion cornice at the eaves and a pediment. The pediment, located above the stepped-forward central bay, features an ornamented oculus in the tympanum. The first-floor windows are designed with semicircular-arched moulded archivolts, ornamented keystones, and imposts, along with triple-bracketed sills for the paired semicircular-arched sash windows. The ground-floor windows are framed with moulded architraves and have cornices on consoles above segmental-arched sashes.
A prominent feature is the large chamfered rusticated ashlar porch, which has arches on each side with keystones and moulded archivolts resting on an impost string course. The front arch is flanked by small recesses below the string course, and the porch's parapet is decorated with pierced circles between panelled piers. The west garden front mirrors the entrance facade but has a wider central bay, a larger pediment with shields in the tympanum above a four-light window, and a canted bay similar to the porch, featuring moulded architraves and keystones above full-height segmental-arched sash windows. The interior has not been inspected.
Local climate
Wiltshire Area Health Authority Headquarters receives an average of 820 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 50% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 51% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 56% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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