The Ivy And The Ivy West Wing

THE IVY AND THE IVY WEST WING

A grade I listed manor house in Chippenham, now divided into two dwellings. The building is dated 1728 and was built for John Norris, a lawyer and Member of Parliament for the borough in 1713. It represents the remodelling of an early 17th-century house, with some seventeenth-century fragments surviving. The house may have been designed by John Strahan, William Halfpenny, William Killigrew, or Thomas Greenway, though the architect remains uncertain.

The building is constructed in Baroque style with an H-shaped plan that includes a service wing to the west, now a separate dwelling. The main facades are finished in limestone ashlar to the north and east, whilst the rear employs squared rubblestone with freestone dressings. The roof is of stone slate, hipped to the rear, with moulded ashlar chimney stacks featuring paired shafts rising to the ridges and former gable ends.

The front elevation presents two storeys with attics and a basement. The façade follows a symmetrical seven-window arrangement, with two windows to projecting outer wings flanking a recessed central range of three windows. A dentilled cornice with balustraded parapet encircles the building. The projecting front wings have banded rusticated quoins topped by urn finials, from which the parapet sweeps upward to segmental pediments. The windows are six-over-six-pane sashes. Two dormers with segmental heads light the gable attics, their windows featuring thick glazing bars set in raised surrounds with keystones and moulded imposts. All windows have moulded architraves; first-floor examples have shaped aprons, whilst ground-floor windows are dressed with cornices and aprons. Those flanking the door carry semicircular arches.

The central bay projects slightly forward and is flanked by pilasters supporting an open pediment and tall parapet with shaped raised and fielded panels, a cornice, and blocking course with urn finials to the sides and centre. Above the first-floor window, a recessed semicircular-arched panel with mask keystone and carving decorates the tympanum. The entrance comprises mid-nineteenth-century half-glazed double doors with margin panes and a semi-elliptical radial fanlight. These are set in a pedimented doorcase with paired engaged Ionic columns supporting a pulvinated frieze and dentilled cornice. The archivolt, imposts, and mask keystone are moulded. The projecting side wings are crowned by urns, with walls sweeping up to support full-width segmental-arched pediments over semicircular-arched attic windows dressed with keystones and moulded imposts. Lead rainwater heads and downpipes, decorated with a raised ivy leaf motif, are dated 1728.

The east facade displays two gables rising behind the parapet from the former building behind. A slightly projecting central range contains a semicircular-arched window with mask keystone and moulded imposts above a pedimented window, flanked by single-storey splayed bay windows with parapets, added in 1758. The south garden front features gabled dormers to the hipped wings and centre. The projecting wings are full-height canted bays with moulded architraves and bracketed sills. The central three-window range has nine-over-nine-pane sash windows. First-floor windows carry semicircular arches with keystones and continuous impost and sills. Ground-floor windows have segmental heads flanking a shell hood on brackets.

The interior includes a large diagonally-paved entrance hall with panelling and a modillion cornice, housing two elaborate stone chimney-pieces. An open-well staircase with turned balusters, swept hand rail, and dado rail rises from this space. The drawing room retains full-height bolection-moulded panels. Paired fluted Corinthian pilasters flank a circular panel above an elaborate fireplace featuring Corinthian columns and a mask centrepiece.

The house was restored in 1981 by Julian Bannerman.