Coombe House

Coombe House

A country house of 18th-century core with early 19th-century and late 19th-century alterations. The original core is plastered cob, with extensions of mostly plastered rubble and rubble stacks featuring plastered brick shafts. The roof is slate.

The building has an irregular layout, essentially L-shaped in plan. The south-facing main block has a double-depth arrangement with principal rooms to the front, corridors behind, and small service rooms to the rear. A central entrance hall and stairs give access to two main front rooms either side. The inner rooms have outer axial chimney stacks, and the right (east) room features a projecting end stack. A three-room service block extends at right angles from the rear of the right room, returning at its end with another room into the rear courtyard. A service stair turret occupies the angle between main block and service wing. To the rear of the left (west) main room is a short rear wing, with a detached bakehouse beyond set diagonally to the rest of the buildings. On the left end of the main block is a large added dining room with an end stack. The building rises two storeys with extensive cellars beneath the main block and attic rooms within the service wing.

The main front elevation presents a symmetrical arrangement of 1:3:1 window bays. The three-bay centre features full-height flanking canted bays with two tiers of panelled pilasters supporting entablatures carried across the central entrance. On the ground floor, the entrance is supported by a pair of Tuscan columns forming a porch with balcony above, where another order of Tuscan columns supports the continuation of the parapet across the middle. Most windows are late 19th-century horned large-pane sashes without glazing bars, occasionally replaced by 20th-century casements. The entire front is incised as ashlar. A projecting eaves cornice with a soffit featuring a series of thin broad rectangular dentils is surmounted by a parapet containing recessed panels. The roof is hipped at each end. The single-storey extension on the left end has two more double large-pane horned sashes and a similar eaves cornice and parapet, with a flat roof.

The right (east-facing) front displays a regular seven-window front with ground-floor 16-pane sashes and first-floor 12-pane (4/8) sashes, all early 19th-century. Left of centre is a later 19th-century single-storey gabled former service porch with sashes featuring margin panes. The rear elevation of the main block includes ground-floor casements protected by spear railings and a large round-headed stair window with glazing bars flanked by 12-pane (4/8) sashes, with a fluted eaves cornice. The bakehouse roof is surmounted by a large timber-framed bellcote with a leaded ogee roof and vase finial. The rear buildings nearly enclose a pitched cobble courtyard; some are unplastered.

The interior contains extensive 19th-century joinery including a curving geometric stair with scroll brackets, stick balusters, mahogany handrail, curtail step and scrolled wreath, alongside some 18th-century two-fielded panel doors. The principal rooms feature 19th-century plaster cornices and contemporary chimney pieces, including one richly carved in Jacobean style incorporating a 17th-century carved oak panel, possibly Flemish work. The single-storey extension has a high late 19th-century Jacobean-style intersecting beam ceiling. The cellars have stone rubble walls and brick barrel vaults.

Coombe House was built as the home of the Silliphant family.