Whistley House

ST 95 NE POTTERNE WHISTLEY ROAD (west side)

7/175 Whistley House 19.3.62 II*

Small country house, built c1730 for the Kent family, on site and incorporating fragments of an earlier building. Red brick with ashlar dressings and Bridgwater tile hipped valley roof with ball- finials to front hips. Two centre stacks. Square plan with projecting rear wing and long range to east. Main range is 2- storey-and-attic with formal 5-window front, but a fragment of timber framing in rear wall and a length of moulded plinth in the cellar spine wall suggest that the rear north-east corner of the square plan incorporates an earlier building and the north-west corner, though similar in detail to the main front is added slightly later. Front has 2 gabled dormers with ball-finials and segment-headed 9-pane windows. Raised moulded stone plinth, ashlar rusticated quoins, moulded string and moulded coved cornice. Segment-headed 12-pane sashes in ashlar raised moulded surrounds. Centre 8-panel door in segment-headed raised moulded surround with large broken curved pediment over on scroll brackets. Above, a small arched headed window in heavily moulded frame, said to have been altered or inserted c1940. Right side wall has 2-light basement window. Left side has 2-window range of blank windows with gauged brick heads and flush keystones, one, to ground floor left, opened up for C20 sash. Rear has door in flush moulded surround and 12-pane sash to each floor to right. Rear wing in red brick with hipped valley roof, the ground floor canted in for access to main rear door. Long north-east 2-storey range with half-hipped roof and ridge stack over a straight joint. Windows mostly C20 metal casements, but some cambered-head timber casements. The further end has thicker walls and may be C18, the nearer end possibly a later rebuilding of a timber-frame structure. Interior: fielded panelled room to ground floor south-east with pilasters and shell cupboard. Centre hall has heavily scrolled timber stair arch. Dog-leg stair with turned balusters, moulded rail and panelled dado. First floor rooms have early to mid C18 fireplaces and some panelling. Changes of level at rear north- east, ground floor timber-lintel fireplace and chamfered spine beam may represent part of a C17 house. Whistley House was held by the Kent family from c1620 to 1800 and known as Butchers in C17 and C18. Inventories survive for 1704 and 1719 but house was probably rebuilt for Henry Kent c1730. (Wiltshire Buildings Record)

Listing NGR: ST9879959244