Banqueting House At Old Wardour Park

The Banqueting House at Old Wardour Park is a late 18th-century building, likely designed by Capability Brown, and now serves as an exhibition space. Constructed from limestone ashlar, it features a hipped Welsh slate roof and has an octagonal shape with two longer sides. This Gothick pavilion is situated against the south-west wall of the Old Wardour Castle bailey.

The south-west front is two stories high and has three windows. It includes a central ogee-headed panel with a planked door, flanked by three-light leaded casements in taller ogee-headed panels. A moulded string course runs along the first floor, with ogee-headed 12-pane sashes on either side of a blind ogee-headed panel. Hexagonal pilasters rise to meet the moulded string course and a battlemented parapet.

The right return has an ogee-headed planked door and a large Tudor-arched opening with 20th-century casements, while the first floor features 12-pane ogee-headed sashes on each face. The left return has two blind ogee panels on the ground floor and three ogee-headed sashes on the first floor.

On the north-east side, which faces into the bailey, there is an entrance at first floor level with central double half-glazed doors set in an ogee-headed moulded architrave. To the right is a blind ogee panel, and to the left is a 6-panelled door in an ogee-headed case. Inside, the building retains an original marble fireplace against the south-west wall and window shutters.

This structure is part of the landscaping associated with the Arundells in the late 18th century, when the Old Castle bailey was transformed into pleasure gardens for Wardour Castle, located to the north-west. Capability Brown was engaged by the Arundells starting in 1773.