Rowdeford School

Rowdeford School is a country house built in 1812 for W. Locke M.P. It is constructed of ashlar stone with a low-pitched slate roof and ashlar stacks. The main elevations are two storeys high, while a painted brick service range is three storeys. The formal front has five windows, with a slightly recessed central bay and two-bay sides framed by Ionic pilasters. Details include a raised plinth, a panelled band to each side, a moulded cornice set back at the centre, and a parapet. The sides feature unmoulded window frames with 12-pane sashes above and plate-glass four-pane sashes below. The centre bay has a first-floor 12-pane sash within an enriched architrave decorated with swags in the frieze and cornice, supported by console brackets. The entrance is a central eight-panel door in a reeded frame, with sidelights and a large traceried fanlight above. A semi-circular ashlar porch is supported by two pairs of Ionic columns with pilaster responds and features an entablature with a panelled frieze. To the right is a five-bay orangery, with the central three bays projecting and featuring Ionic pilasters. It has a timber cornice and margin-lights to the windows, and a glazed door in the centre. The broad three-bay side elevation has similar detailing, with a recessed central corniced tripartite window on the ground floor, a 12-pane window above, and wings framed by Ionic pilasters. The upper windows are 12-pane, with a French window to the ground floor left and a blind window to the right. The interior includes an entrance hall with a plaster frieze and fluted surrounds to the doorcases on each side, two Ionic columns at the rear screening a stair-hall, an open well staircase with a thin iron lyre-motif balustrade, a circular top lantern, matching Ionic columns to the first-floor landing, and rooms with plaster cornices and friezes. The house is said to have been built for Wadham Locke M.P., who died in 1835, and subsequently passed to F.A.S. Locke, who died in 1885. However, it was apparently owned or occupied around 1815 by Thomas Wyatt (died 1820), and around 1818 by his son Matthew (died 1831), the father of the architects Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807-80) and Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820-77). Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt was born at Rowdeford.