Broadleas

ROUNDWAY POTTERNE ROAD SU 06 SW (west side) 5/217 Broadleas (formerly listed as Broadleas 19.3.62 House)

II

House, c1830-40, extended c1920-30 in matching style, ashlar with low pitched slate eaves roof and ashlar stacks. Two-storey, originally with 3-window fronts on three sides, that to south extended to five c1920-30. Roof has brackets to boarded eaves soffit. Entrance front has two front stacks, slightly recessed centre bay and angle strips and 3 first floor 16-pane sashes with shutters. Ground floor each side has blank elliptical arched recess framing niche with terracotta statue and flanked by blank rectangular panels. Centre 4-panel door with side-lights and cornice on corbels in elliptical arched frame, set in heavy ashlar corniced porch with Venetian tripartite front opening and arched side openings. Porch details are unmoulded with corbel-type consoles under impost band at heads of door and side-light jambs. Original north and south ends had recessed centre bay, 3 upper sashes, ground floor centre sash with similar sash in elliptical arched recess to one side and large canted bay with parapet to the other, all the windows with shutters. On south garden front two further bays have been added in mirror image to make 5-window front with centre and ends projected and canted bays to ground floor of end bays. Various 3 and 4 storey brick service ranges in north- east angle. House is said to have been built c1832-4 for a Devizes builder. From the 1860s it belonged to the Ewart family. William Ewart M.P. (1798-1869) promoter of the Free Libraries Act (1850), and the acts for the abolition of hanging in chains (1834) and of the death penalty for cattle theft (1837), advocate of the abolition of capital punishment, died here.

Listing NGR: SU0010560164