Dauntsey House

Dauntsey House is a country house with a 14th-century core, substantially remodelled in the late 17th or early 18th century and again around 1800 when it was recased in ashlar. The north end range was reduced in the mid 20th century. The building is constructed with stone slate roofs and ashlar stacks, rising to two storeys and attic, and is planned as an L-shaped main house with a north-east service range.

The main south and west fronts are similar in treatment, featuring a raised plinth, angle piers, a band, moulded cornice and parapet. Windows are twelve-pane sashes with thick glazing bars, renewed around 1900. The south front, which has four windows, is topped by a parapet pierced to light four gabled dormers, with floor-length ground floor windows. The south and west ends display coped gables and end stacks.

The east end wall is constructed of roughcast rubble stone with an ashlar gable; traces of ancient masonry have been found beneath the roughcast. The west end wall is ashlar and includes a two-window range matching the formal seven-window main west front. The seven-window range features a centre entrance with large double doors framed by heavy Roman Doric pilasters and a stone shelf above. A matching single-storey, two-window north end addition screens a garage. The north-east range is partly ashlar with rendering to the north and a single-storey kitchen range to the east. The rear east front is ashlar with a centre first-floor Venetian window between two twelve-pane sashes and a ground floor of four sashes and French windows.

The interior is notable for the presence of four massive 32-foot raised cruck trusses in the roof of the rear range, positioned over the dining room. However, the present interiors are remarkable chiefly for their outstanding quality of decoration dating to around 1800. The entrance hall features a circa 1800 archway with sidelights to the rear hall, which contains the bottom flight of a circa 1800 stair to the left. An open-well staircase to the north now has an inserted floor. To the right of the entrance hall is a fine Ionic doorcase giving access to the dining room. A room to the south of the entrance hall contains an inserted mahogany staircase, probably dating to the later 19th century.

The south end range displays outstanding circa 1800 decoration, including cornices, friezes, wall and dado panels and Ionic doorcases. A marble carved fireplace is located here. A very large east-end double doors in a matching Ionic doorcase opens to the east-end ante-room, which features an Adam-style painted ceiling still in its original colours and a marble fireplace. To the north lies a panelled dining room executed in late 17th to early 18th-century style, though possibly largely a good circa 1900 imitation, with fielded panelled walls incorporating paintings, panelled shutters, a heavily carved north-end doorcase, matching cornice and a 20th-century stone fireplace. Fine mahogany doors are found throughout.

The Dauntsey estate was held by the Dauntsey family in the Middle Ages, passing via the Stradling family to the Danvers family in the 16th century. Henry Danvers, who died in 1643, was created 1st Earl of Danby. Following the Restoration, the estates were sequestered because Sir John Danvers of Baydon, who died in 1655, was among the regicides. The property was bestowed around 1710 on Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth, who was commander of the allied forces in Spain from 1705 to 1707 and died in 1735. The fourth Earl died in 1779 and the fifth and last Earl, for whom the house was refronted, died in 1819. In the later 19th century the house was owned by Sir H. Meux and was sold in 1910.