Burton Park St Michael'S School

SU 91 NE BARLAVINGTON

13/112 Burton Park (St Michael's School) 22.2.55

I

Country house. Built by John Biddulph about 1828 after a fire in 1826 when the previous house designed by Giacomo Leoni in 1739 was destroyed. Architect Henry Bassett. Three storey mansion faced with Roman cement. The entrance front faces west. Five windows. The ground floor is rusticated and forms a podium with 2 stringcourses above it. Central doorway in moulded architrave surround with rectangular fanlight and flat pediment supported on 4 console brackets with fluted frieze between these. The 2 windows on each side are flanked by pilasters. Above the ground floor the outermost window bay on each side is flanked by pilasters with a cornice and blocking course over. The central portion between is recessed with 4 fluted Ionic columns forming a loggia or portico in front of it and pilasters flanking the recess. Below the columns are 2 ornamental panels of rosettes. High balustraded parapet above with anthemium cresting in the centre. The windows in the recess are set in moulded architrave surrounds, the centre one with a pediment also on brackets. Glazing bars intact in all windows. The south front is similarly rusticated. Five windows. The end window bays project. Pilasters rising through the first and second floors flank each window bay. Cornice and blocking course over. Balustraded parapet without cresting above the recessed centre. Windows in moulded architrave surrounds, those on the first floor with cornices over as well. Glazing bars intact. The east front has 10 windows, the 4 southernmost ones projecting. Large modern school additions to the north. The interior contains a Grecian hall, which is possibly a remodelling of the hall of Leoni's house, and a magnificent staircase said to have been brought here from Michelgrove near Arundel, which was demolished in 1828. This is of cast and wrought bronze with a figure of a greyhound sejant on alternate steps and was built for Richard Walker in 1800. It was moved to its present place in the house by Major J S Courtauld in 1919, when much of the interior was altered. The house is Grade I for this staircase. The exterior alone would be Grade II*. Article in Country Life of 11 July 1936.

Listing NGR: SU9681517490