The Mount House

The Mount House is a Grade II* listed house located in Great Somerford, originally built in the 16th century and later refronted in the early 19th century. It features a rubble stone structure with a roughcast front and stone slate roofs, and consists of two storeys and an attic. The formal front has three windows, an ashlar ridge stack, and end stacks. There are raised angle piers at the center bay and outer angles, a timber eaves cornice, and a central pediment.

On the first floor, there are 12-pane sash windows on each side and a round-headed window in the center. The ground floor includes French windows on each side with margin glazing bars and a set of double half-glazed doors beneath a wrought-iron tent porch. The east wall is made of rubble stone, with a plinth of the rear wall also in rubble stone, and roughcast above, featuring a one-window range of casement pairs.

At the rear, there is a flat-roofed stair tower that is roughcast, with a north cross window and an open ground floor that has a framed plank door. The rear wing has a ridge stack, one hipped dormer, and leaded casements, with a casement pair on each floor to the left, followed by a single casement on each floor, and a two-storey gabled porch with a small pair of sashes above a flat-headed entry. The porch has an exposed timber-frame wall of the main house, a plank door, and a casement to the right of the porch. There is also an end wall lean-to with a large red brick stack and a slate roof.

Inside, the framing appears to be of a single build with bar-stopped beams and one compartmental ceiling in the rear wing. The late 17th or early 18th-century stair features an original folding door at the foot, sliding shutters to the stair-light, and turned balusters at the landing. One upper room in the rear wing has early 18th-century panelling and a bolection-moulded fireplace.

Historically, The Mount House served as the manor house of Somerford Maltravers, which was held by the Maltravers family during the Middle Ages. It is said to have been rebuilt shortly before its sale in 1575 to John Yewe or Yeo, a clothier. The house was held by the Jason family from 1609 to 1698, and then purchased in 1698 by John Smith of Wanborough, remaining in the Smith family and their descendants until 1940. The refronting was likely commissioned by Dr. William Smith, who inherited the property in 1798 and died in 1833.