Wardour Castle

Wardour Castle, now Cranborne Chase School, is a country house built between 1770 and 1776 by James Paine for the Eighth Lord Arundell. The main block is square, with flanking pavilions, constructed from limestone ashlar with hipped Welsh slate roofs and ashlar stacks. The north front has a rusticated basement beneath a piano nobile, mezzanine, and attic floor, arranged across nine bays where the central three bays project forward. A central double door, with half-glazed panels, is flanked by four 6-pane sashes on the basement level. The piano nobile features a central Palladian window of Ionic order with a balustraded apron, and four 12-pane sashes with pediments or dentilled cornices either side. A mezzanine floor has small 6-pane sashes, while the attic has 6-pane sashes within moulded architraves. The front is linked to the pavilions with a concave design, featuring five round-arched openings containing double doors and sashes, with niches to the sides of the basement. The first floor above has large sashes. The pavilions have 6-pane sashes to the basements, a Venetian window and flanking sashes to the piano nobile, and a pediment concealing an attic with 3-pane and 6-pane sashes and a chapel at the east end, which has three leaded lunettes. The east pavilion includes a canted east end with sashes and semicircular panels above, and modern extensions related to school facilities. The south front has a rusticated basement with eight 6-pane sashes and a central double door. The piano nobile features a giant Composite Order flanking a round-arched central window with flanking niches, three large, pedimented sashes either side and a fluted frieze. The upper floor has 6-pane sashes, a cornice and pediment similar to the north front. The left return has a five-bay basement, five large sashes to the piano nobile, and 6-pane sashes to the mezzanine and attic. The right return has a basement below the main floor with a central Palladian window and one sash to the right and two to the left, with 6-pane or 9-pane sashes to the mezzanine and attic.

The interior’s main feature is a central rotunda in the main block, with a double curved staircase of wrought iron balustrade, leading to a gallery with Composite columns supporting a coffered dome and glazed lantern. The gallery’s walls contain semi-circular niches, also coffered. The piano nobile contains state rooms and an apartment in the southwest corner, including a "Boudoir" remodelled by Soane around 1790; all retain original pairs of double 8-panelled doors, some with pediments, window shutters, plaster ceiling friezes, and marble fireplaces. Notable plaster ceilings include a saucer dome in the Reading Room and a gilded ceiling in the Boudoir. A former kitchen in the east pavilion has a blocked open fireplace and now functions as a school gymnasium. One of the finest Palladian houses in Wiltshire.