Samways

Samways is a detached house located in Alvediston Village, dating from around 1700 with later additions from the 18th century and mid-19th century. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with a tiled roof and features ashlar or brick stacks. It has an L-plan shape with later extensions to the south.

The house is two stories high with a two-window front. The entrance has a chamfered pointed doorway with a heavy ledged door. To the right of the doorway is a 16-pane segmental-headed sash window, and there are two similar windows on the first floor. The right side has a coped verge, and the stacks have moulded cappings. The projecting wing to the left has two 16-pane sashes on the ground floor of its right return and one on the first floor. A moulded string course runs over the segmental heads of the ground floor windows. The front of this wing features two early 20th-century 8-pane sashes on both floors, along with a coped verge.

To the left, there is a bay added in the 18th century with a 16-pane sash and a cross window. A single-storey range from the late 17th century is on the left and includes a 2-light chamfered recessed mullioned window and a 3-light casement. The left return has an ovolo-mullioned 2-light window and a saddleback coped verge. The right return features a large external stack with offsets and a string course.

At the rear, there is a 19th-century two-storey canted bay on the left with French windows and louvred shutters, along with a moulded cornice. To the right are French windows with painted glass and three 16-pane sashes, with a string course running over the segmental heads. The first floor has four 16-pane sashes, and the right bay is an 18th-century addition in the same style. The left return from the front has a mid-19th-century service addition made of Flemish bond brick, featuring margin-pane French windows and casements.

Inside, the entrance hall has early 18th-century newel stairs with three turned balusters, an open string, and doors with six fielded panels and a panelled dado. The rear single-storey range includes a chamfered beam with ogee stops and a round-arched chamfered stone doorway with a planked door. The main reception rooms were refitted around 1910, featuring mirrored fireplace overmantels on columns, plaster ceiling margins with rosettes, and painted glass in the French windows depicting Arcadian scenes.