Grittleton House

Grittleton House is a large country house, now used as a school, built between approximately 1832 and 1856. The main phase of construction involved architect James Thomson, with modifications made in 1853–54 by H. Clutton, commissioned by Joseph Neeld. The building is constructed of ashlar in small coursed blocks with stone slate roofs, Jacobean shaped gables, and numerous tall shaped chimney stacks.

The house is exceptionally large in scale, comprising a two-and-a-half to three-storey double-pile main range with a two-storey service court at the north end on a square plan. Its architectural character is stylistically mixed, reflecting two main building phases (circa 1832–40 and 1853–56) and the change of architect in 1853–54. The overall style is predominantly round-arched, more crudely detailed in the earlier north end, but acquiring a distinctive Italian Trecento flavour with richer carving towards the centre and south end.

The north end comprises a large wing at the left of the entrance front and right of the garden front, with a single bay adjoining, which was substantially complete by 1843 and involved part-refacing and addition to an existing 17th-century house. The major extension of 1852–56 required demolition of this earlier structure. Thomson's design was published in The Builder in 1853, but in that year he was replaced by Clutton, who was dismissed in 1854 after altering certain details including the bay-window designs, the central tower design, the conservatory, and substituting Jacobean gables for the pyramid-roofed angle turrets originally proposed by Thomson. Thomson appears to have completed the house between 1854 and 1856, though a design for the porte-cochere was exhibited in 1863 at the Royal Academy by J.J. Thomson Jr.

Both east and west fronts feature tall centre and end pavilions with Jacobean gables (that to the garden front centre is dated 1851), and projecting bays of differing designs. The wings between the gables also vary, though overall symmetry is largely achieved. The centre features a heavily detailed tower with sunk panels to the attic and flat pinnacles.

The west entrance front has a projected porch bay to the centre pavilion and a large porte-cochere beyond. The porte-cochere is round-arched with the Neeld motto in its pierced parapet. An ornate round-arched front door opens into the entrance. The first floor features a Florentine-type traceried arched window (with two arched lights within the main arch), and an attic semi-circular ashlar oriel with cornice and parapet carried around.

The main pavilion behind has ornate first-floor angle windows set diagonally behind an angle shaft with an arch on each face. The wings share similar cornices and parapets but differ otherwise. The earlier wing to the left has a three-storey, two-window elevation, with the left bay as illustrated in 1843 and the right presumably added to match. The left end pavilion has a large two-storey square bay with 1:3:1-arched lights, the upper arches on full-height shafts with carved capitals. It has a pierced parapet and attic two-light window as illustrated in 1843, though the gable was later altered. The earlier work features small-paned windows whilst the later work has plate glass. The wing to the right of centre is of the same height but two-storey with three windows, featuring ornately carved and shafted two-light windows, square-headed below and round-arched above. A convex-curved one-window section projects in the angle to the right.

The right pavilion contains a very large two-storey square bay of 2:6:2-lights in a round-arched version of Venetian Gothic Ca d'oro type, featuring quatrefoils above the tall ground-floor lights. The arched heads are stilted, with carved capitals and transoms with shaft rings. The upper windows are simpler, lacking transom or quatrefoils.

The east front is broadly similar but with canted bay-windows. The centre features an arched doorway with finely carved boss, above which is a Ca d'oro type stair-light of large transomed curved oriel with side-lights, pierced parapet, and attic long two-light window. The south end displays an array of ridge stacks, pierced parapet, cornice, and nine first-floor two-light windows with stilted-arched lights and hoodmoulds. A very large ground-floor ashlar conservatory with corrugated plastic roof cladding extends from the south end, with a 4:3:4 bay front, two bays deep. It is arcaded with chamfered piers and moulded arches; the centre three bays are bow-fronted. Some original cast-iron tracery survives in the centre and end bays.

The north end service court is relatively plain, with similar two-storey, four-window fronts and hipped roofs to the west and east. The windows are mullion-and-transom type, with two lights above and three below, vertically arranged in slightly projected bays. A statue in a niche on the south-facing wall of the north-east wing depicts a female figure in classical dress, a remainder from the auction of the Neeld collection of statues in 1966.

The interiors present a theatrical sequence of principal spaces on a cross-plan, with the short axis of the entrance hall, central hall, and grand stair intersecting a long axial sequence of full-height top-lit vestibules in which the Neeld sculpture collection was displayed. A statue remaining from the upper tier of niches and the 1966 auction is still present.

The central hall rises the full three storeys to a rococo-style plaster roof with fine stone arcading all around and first-floor and iron second-floor balconies. The staircase forms a processional sequence of horseshoe approach to an imperial stair with bronzed cast-iron railings of intersected arcade pattern and a coffered ceiling. To the north lie two top-lit octagonal plaster-vaulted spaces with angle shafting and a barrel-vaulted space beyond with plaster transverse ribs, as illustrated in 1843. Early 19th-century stained glass features in the north end window. To the south is a single large top-lit space with an arcaded gallery.

The main rooms are chiefly notable for monumental marble fireplaces, as Neeld intended his pictures to be the principal decoration. The south-west dining room and south-east drawing room are adjoined by a billiard room to the west and library opposite. The library features original mahogany bookcases, scagliola Corinthian columns, and curious bronze tripods as decorative features on bookcases and windows. Rooms to the north of the hall are considerably simpler. The first floor includes one remarkable plaster ceiling to the Winter Drawing Room over the front entrance, with Gothic pendants, more typical of the early 19th century.

Records at Wiltshire Record Office include accounts from circa 1847–56 and extensive material relating to an 1855 lawsuit between Neeld and Clutton. Named craftsmen mentioned include Joseph White for stone-carving, Potter of London for ironwork, and Parsons of London for plasterwork. Original drawings by Thomson from circa 1852–53 remain at the house. J.E. Jackson's History of the Parish of Grittleton (1843) contains illustrations of the house by C.J. Richardson, and The Builder (volumes 11, pages 279 and 281) provides elevation and plan as intended by Thomson in 1853.