Pinbury Park

PINBURY PARK

A large country house with some 15th-century remains but principally dating from the late 16th century. It was altered in the late 17th century for Sir Robert Atkyns, the county historian, and a wing was added around 1903 by Ernest Gimson and Ernest Barnsley for Earl Bathurst. The house is constructed of random rubble and coursed limestone with dressed quoins and windows, ashlar front porch, ashlar chimneys, and a stone slate roof.

The main range consists of 2 storeys with an attic, organised around a central hall with one room laterally and a staircase wing centrally positioned at the rear. A 2-storey service wing runs back at the east end, and the circa 1903 wing sits to the south behind and parallel to the main range. An adjoining cottage is linked to the service wing.

The front elevation displays 3 windows with cross-gables at each end. A central doorway is sheltered by a chamfered Tudor-arched porch with small side windows and a heavy studded and banded plank door. All windows are now mullioned and transomed leaded timber casements with deep stone lintels. Those to ground and upper floors have 6 lights, except for a 4-light window centrally positioned above the porch; smaller 4-light casements sit in each gable. Parapet gables feature roll-topped coping that runs continuously between the gables. The gabled west end has one 6-light casement to ground floor with indications of a former cross-window above. At low level, a cellar window includes one moulded jamb with an undercut hollow chamfer, probably surviving from the 15th century or earlier monastic building phase. A projecting chimney stack rises from the reverse side of the main range.

The stair wing is distinguished by a 2-light recessed cavetto mullioned window on its side and, at attic level at the back, a 3-light window, both with hoodmoulds. A partly obscured and now blocked mullioned window at the back of the main range indicates that the stair wing is an addition.

The 20th-century west wing is cross-gabled with a chimney in the north gable stepped with stone-slate weatherings. Its west end features a canted bay window to ground floor with a 4-light front and single-light side windows, a 3-light above, and a narrow slit vent in the upper part of the gable. All windows are chamfered mullioned with deep stone lintels and sills. Exposed purlin ends project from the gable. Facing south onto the court is a 3-light casement with a 2-light above in the gable. The wing is linked to the main range by a single-storey flat-roofed corridor.

The east end of the main range has roll-topped coping to parapet gables. A blocked attic cross-window with reserved chamfered moulding indicates original 16th-century fenestration. A small off-centre recessed ovolo moulded single-light sits in the upper floor. The lower service wing displays late 17th-century fenestration of 2- and 3-light casements with rendered timber lintels. A 20th-century flat-roofed extension of one storey projects to the east. A small ashlar chimney stack rises at the back of the service wing. Single-storey gabled service rooms span a sunken path at the rear and connect with the adjoining cottage.

Interior features include 17th-century ovolo moulded panelling in the hall and an altered late 16th-century newel staircase beyond. Two fireplaces are found in the main range: in the room to the left of the hall, a late 18th-century Adam-style fireplace with fluted pilasters and acanthus leaf decoration, vertical fluting to the lintel with rosettes, and a central panel carrying an urn in low relief; in the room to the right of the hall, a 17th-century-style fireplace with a carved pulvinated frieze to the lintel and a central heraldic shield in a strapwork surround.

The principal room in the 20th-century wing represents an important early example of Cotswold Arts and Crafts work. It features fielded panelling throughout by Barnsley and a richly carved stone chimney-piece by Gimson depicting a stylised oak tree complete with squirrels eating acorns. Heavily modelled plasterwork also by Gimson includes a floral frieze and rose decoration to the beams. A plaster inscription above the fireplace reads: "ILLE TERRARUM MIHI PRAETER OMNES ANGULUS RIDET".

Terraced gardens lie to the south west, and to the west stands an ancient avenue of yew trees known as the Nun's Walk. The house was restored and occupied by Sir Robert Atkyns until his death in 1711. Its origins are monastic, and its siting on a promontory overlooking a deep part of the Frome valley is very similar to that of Nutbeam Farmhouse in Duntisbourne Leer. Pinbury Park was lent to Gimson and the Barnsley brothers by Earl Bathurst in 1894 when they first established the Sapperton Arts and Crafts community, and their work on the then dilapidated house constituted their first architectural work in the area.