Killerton House And Ha Ha Approximately 20 Metres In Front Of Entrance

A country house with origins in the 1680s, when the Acland family first built on this site. The present main block was designed by John Johnson in 1778 as what he termed "a temporary residence" for Sir Thomas Acland. The house was subsequently enlarged in 1830, underwent internal refurbishments in 1900 by the Cheltenham architects Prothero & Philpott, and received a new entrance hall in 1924 by Randall Wells.

The building is constructed of stone (Johnson's work possibly in Coade stone) with stucco finish and slate hipped roofs concealed behind parapets. It is predominantly two storeys, with single-storey exceptions comprising the music room of 1830, the main entrance, and the study/billiards room of 1900 (now a conference room).

Johnson's original simple two-storey block measures five bays wide by seven bays deep on the left side. The front elevation comprises five bays, with the central bay projecting slightly and containing a round-headed doorway with original fanlight and twentieth-century doors, set beneath a pediment with modillions and frieze supported by two Tuscan columns. The windows throughout are two 6-pane hornless timber sashes, all housed under blind boxes; some appear to be original. A platband and parapet complete the front treatment. The left-hand side elevation of seven bays mirrors the front details without the forward projection.

An early nineteenth-century extension continues behind, slightly set back from Johnson's range, with asymmetrical fenestration including a projecting bay containing a round-headed sash window above and a round-headed garden door with margin panes and fanlight below. An iron balcony with open-work iron supports is positioned here. Twentieth-century offices are located to the rear.

Around 1830, the ground-floor music room was extended as the first in a series of projections to the right-hand elevation, taking the form of a polygonal bay. Each of the three faces contains a round-headed sash window with 9 panes above and 6 below. In 1900, Prothero and Philpott added their study/billiards room, forming an L-shaped plan: a rectangular chamber with 3 bays to the front and 2 to the side, featuring round-headed sash windows beneath a parapet with small pilaster buttresses. Between this room and the music room, within the inner angle of the L-shape, Randall Wells positioned his entrance hall, which is polygonal in plan with 3 bays. The central bay contains a large moulded round-headed doorway, while the flanking bays each have a 2-light square-headed sash window.

The interior preserves the most important rooms from Johnson's period and Randall Wells's work, although the nineteenth-century additions are also of considerable merit. Most of Johnson's original interior work was remodelled in 1900. Surviving intact is the corridor (formerly the entrance corridor), which consists of a sequence of 3 domes divided by large, plain transverse arches. Entrances at either end feature large fanlights, and the corridor is panelled with mahogany side doors possessing deep, panelled reveals. Johnson is also responsible for the plaster frieze in the dining room (formerly the Great Parlour) and the wooden fluted columns with composite capitals that flank the entrance to the library.

The music room was remodelled around 1830 with 2 scagliola columns bearing Ionic capitals flanking an organ of 1807 by William Gray. Other rooms were completely reworked in 1900 with replica eighteenth-century fire surrounds and carton pierre ceilings by Jackson & Son, who possessed Robert Adam's original mouldings. Randall Wells's work in the entrance hall comprises plain pillars with chunky capitals and similarly treated internal supports to window lintels.

A ha-ha of large rubble stones extends across the angle of the entrance front, positioned approximately 20 metres in front of the main entrance.