Battle House

ST 9665 BROMHAM HIGH STREET (west side)

10/41 Battle House 19.3.62 GV II*

House, C15 and c1760, rear range roughcast over timber frame with slate roof and axial ridge stack, front range render, lined as ashlar, with ashlar dressings, slate hipped roof and outside rear stacks. Two storeys and attic. Formal 5-window front with 3 segment-headed dormers. Ashlar to plinth, ground floor sill course, rusticated quoins, moulded cornice and parapet, and also to frame of first floor Venetian window and ground floor projecting enclosed pedimented porch with Roman Doric pilasters. Twelve-pane sashes elsewhere and 2 small lights each side of porch all without surrounds. East end one-window range with dormer. West end 2- storey canted bay with cornice under hipped roof. French window to ground floor centre, 12-pane sash above. Blank windows to each floor to left. Right is obscured by 2-storey c1900 addition in similar style with north side 12-30-12 pane tripartite window to studio and two 9-pane sashes above. Three 18-pane ground floor windows to west. C15 rear range has early C18 thick-glazing-bar 20-pane sashes to east front, one each floor to left, a pair each floor to centre. C19 sash each floor to right. South end has door, 6-pane window above, attic casements and small 4-pane light in apex. Interior: front range has 2-storey stair hall with modillion cornice and open well stair with turned balusters and brackets to treads. Attic has 5 king-post trusses with collar-pieces tenoned- in each side, possibly indicating that c1760 work is a remodelling of a C17 building. Hips each end appear later additions. C15 rear range is probably former open hall with 2-storey south end. Four- bay 2-purlin roof with 2 tiers of windbracing and collar trusses. First floor south end room has stone Tudor-arched fireplace, tension braces exposed and 4 spine beams with an unusually elaborated stepped stop. Timber-mullion 3-light west window. Six- panel scratch moulded door. Another similar is in attic of front range, with cock's head hinges. House is named for the manor of Bromham Battle, held by Battle Abbey, Sussex, before the Reformation. The home of Sir William Napier (1785-1860) from 1826- 31, where he wrote the major part of his 'History of the War in the Peninsula', called incomparably the finest English military history. The studio addition was made for the artist L. Raven- Hill.

Listing NGR: ST9627965286