Netherhampton House

Netherhampton House is a detached house with rear wings, built in the second half of the 17th century and substantially altered and extended in the early 18th and 19th centuries. It is constructed of ashlar and brick with tiled roofs and brick chimney stacks.

The house is planned as an L-shape with a rear parallel range. The principal front elevation is symmetrical and nine windows wide across three storeys. This façade is a 1720s refacing in ashlar of the original 17th-century brick house.

The ground floor features a central door with six fielded panels and a rusticated surround with keystone. To either side are two bays with tall 12-pane sashes with segmental heads and keystones. Between these outer bays are two further 12-pane sashes with segmental heads and keystones. The first floor has a plat band and a central round-arched niche with rusticated surround. To either side are two 12-pane sashes with segmental heads, with two blind windows to left and right. The second floor has a plat band and two sashes either side of a central blind window; all sashes retain their original thick glazing bars. The parapet is swept up to the central five-window range and crowned with three carved stone urn finials. The right return is of brick and is windowless.

Rear wings comprise outshuts to the left with 20th-century windows to the ground floor and one 12-pane sash to the first-floor gable. To the rear right is a two-storey, three-window west wing dating from the 18th century, with 20th-century doors and casements to the ground floor and three 12-pane sashes with thick glazing bars to the first floor.

The north wing was a service wing converted to accommodation in the late 19th century. Its three-window range to the left has 12-pane sashes and canted bay windows to the ground floor, with three gabled dormers half in the roof. A single-storey right range has a six-panelled door and three casements. The left return is a two-storey, ten-window west range forming the garden front, constructed of brick with some flint and stone checkers. A flat-roofed single-storey projection to the right has a rusticated door surround with segmental head, French windows, and a portico with fluted Corinthian columns, probably moved from the front around 1720. To the left is a round-arched stair window, 20th-century French windows, and two 12-pane sashes. The first floor has nine 12-pane sashes with thick glazing bars.

The interior contains fittings mostly dating from around 1720, including panelled entrance and stair halls with ceiling cornices and newel stairs with turned balusters. The drawing room features bolection-moulded dado panelling and a cyma-moulded cornice, with a marble fireplace of around 1800 decorated with panels depicting Grecian women on the jambs. A first-floor east room has bolection and fielded panelling with a marble fireplace overmantel of 1720 and ceiling cornice. Doors are either six-panelled or two-panelled. Early 18th-century garret stairs retain turned balusters and square newels with ball finials.

Historically, the 17th-century house was part of the Wilton Estate and was occupied by the Gauntlett family. The front façade and alterations of around 1720 are probably the work of Gauntlett Fry (died 1746); the quartered arms of Gauntlett and Fry appear on the overthrow of the front gates. Panelling in the north range dating to the 19th century was brought from Longford Castle around 1950 by R. H. Julian, probably from Alexander's north tower which was reduced in height at that date. The house was divided into two during the 1950s.