Whistley House

Whistley House is a small country house built around 1730 for the Kent family, situated on a site incorporating elements of an earlier building. The construction is primarily red brick with ashlar dressings and a Bridgwater tile hipped valley roof featuring ball finials to the front hips. It has two central stacks and a square plan with a projecting rear wing and a long range extending to the east.

The main range is two storeys and an attic, presenting a formal five-window front. Fragments of timber framing are visible in the rear wall, and a moulded plinth in the cellar spine wall suggest that the rear north-east corner incorporates an earlier building, while the north-west corner is a slightly later addition, though sharing a similar design to the main front. Dormers with ball finials and segment-headed nine-pane windows punctuate the facade. Architectural details include a raised moulded stone plinth, ashlar rusticated quoins, a moulded string, and a moulded coved cornice. Segment-headed twelve-pane sashes are set within ashlar raised moulded surrounds. The main entrance features an eight-panel door within a segment-headed raised moulded surround, topped by a large broken curved pediment supported on scroll brackets. Above the door is a small arched window in a heavily moulded frame, reportedly altered or inserted around 1940. A two-light basement window is found on the right side of the house; the left side has a two-window range of blank windows with gauged brick heads and flush keystones, with one ground-floor window having been opened for a 20th-century sash. The rear elevation features a door in a flush moulded surround, and twelve-pane sashes on each floor to the right.

The rear wing is constructed of red brick with a hipped valley roof, with the ground floor canted to provide access to the main rear door. A long, two-storey north-east range, with a half-hipped roof and a ridge stack, runs alongside. Most windows in this range are 20th-century metal casements, although some are cambered-head timber casements. The further end of this range has thicker walls and possibly dates back to the 18th century, while the nearer end may be a later rebuilding of a timber-frame structure.

The interior includes a fielded panelled room on the ground floor’s south-east side, featuring pilasters and a shell cupboard. The central hall has a heavily scrolled timber stair arch, leading to a dog-leg stair with turned balusters, a moulded rail, and a panelled dado. First-floor rooms possess early to mid-18th-century fireplaces and some panelling. Changes in floor level at the rear north-east, along with a ground-floor timber-lintel fireplace in the north-east corner, and stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, may represent remnants of a 17th-century house.

Whistley House was held by the Kent family from around 1620 to 1800, and was formerly known as Butchers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Inventories dating to 1704 and 1719 exist, suggesting the house was probably rebuilt for Henry Kent around 1730.