Clearwell Castle

Country house, built in 1727 by Roger Morris for Thomas Wyndham, in a Gothic style. The building is of Forest stone and suffered a fire in 1929, followed by a period of ruin when the floors and roof were removed in 1948. The entrance front features a two-story central portion flanked by symmetrical three-story towers, all with embattlements alternately carved with the Wyndham lion. The towers have diagonal buttresses in the two lower stages. The windows have stone mullions and transoms, with pointed arched heads on the ground floor and elsewhere. The central doorway, which leads directly into the great hall, is approached by a double flight of steps with turned balusters and has flanking clustered colonnettes. Attractive round windows are present both at the entrance and along the basement. The house sits on a sloping site, and the side elevations appear irregular, possibly due to 19th-century additions in the same style. The library has a large bow window facing south, which seems to have been used as a chapel at one time. At the opposite end, leading into the hall, are tall Ionic columns in antis. This room, and many others, have a typical early 18th-century cornice and a splendid stone fireplace with a carved baroque overmantel. Some original fireplaces survive; the best is in the hall, featuring carved hunting equipment in the frieze. The house was restored after the 1929 fire, and many of the ceilings are now facsimiles rather than original. There is no surviving Gothic decoration inside, and the fireplaces reflect the baroque phase of the early 18th century.