Doddershall House

Doddershall House is a large house of complex development spanning from the early 16th century to the early 19th century. The northeast and southeast wings were built in the early 16th century for Thomas Pigott, a Sergeant-at-law, while the southwest wing is dated 1689, as marked on its rainwater heads. Early 19th-century alterations were subsequently made to the building. The house now forms a U-plan, but it was originally arranged around a courtyard; the northwest wing was removed in the late 18th century.

The southeast wing retains a timber frame with close studding and curved tension braces exposed internally, though parts have been rebuilt in brick and are now covered externally with roughcast. The southwest wing is constructed of chequer brick, also mostly roughcast, with a moulded string course and wooden eaves cornice. The northeast wing was rebuilt in brick in the early 19th century. The roofs are of old tiles, with brick chimneys, some featuring octagonal shafts. Windows are leaded casements; those in the southeast wing have moulded wooden mullions and transoms, some original.

The long southeast front features smoothly rendered quoins, a moulded wooden eaves cornice with modillions, and irregular 16th-century plaster medallion panels decorated with profile heads and heraldic badges. Two wooden shields bearing the Pigott arms are positioned between the right-hand windows. The left bay is gabled with a small bind roundel at its apex and moulded brick kneelers. A fine 16th-century external chimney stack to the left of centre displays a moulded brick cornice, a panel of rusticated brickwork, and two octagonal brick shafts with moulded bases and offset heads. To the right of centre stands a two-storey porch projection with a gable on carved wooden scroll brackets, ornamental bargeboards, 20th-century glazed doors in an architrave frame, and oval windows to the sides. The chimney and porch are repeated on the northwest side, though the chimney may have been added or rebuilt in the 19th century. The southwest wing features a two-storey porch projection with parapet, six bays of large cross windows to the left, and two bays of two-light windows to the right. A narrow two-storey passage extension extends on the courtyard side.

The courtyard side of the southeast wing contains a 19th-century two-storey canted bay window with arched lights and Tudor hoodmoulds to the left, and a triple gabled porch projection with large lancet windows flanking the door. A 19th-century doorcase features re-set carved wooden spandrels.

The interior of the southeast wing contains a hall with moulded cross beams, cornice, and moulded jowled main posts. The hall features a frieze of 15th and 16th-century carved wooden figures and a moulded stone fireplace with a four-centred arch, cornice, and some 16th to 17th-century carved panels to its left. Two other ground-floor rooms in this wing have deeply chamfered cross beams and 16th to 18th-century panelled doors, along with a small staircase with turned balusters. The room above the hall contains large plain wooden panels, a frieze similar to that of the hall, a late 16th-century door of two enriched panels, and a moulded stone fireplace with a four-centred arch, carved spandrels, and a surround of 18th-century wooden strips carved with flowers. This room and others on the first floor feature moulded cross or spine beams.

The staircase hall in the southwest wing contains much re-sited panelling of various dates: some with 16th to early 17th-century carving, some linenfold, some 15th-century with blind cusped tracery, and some late 17th-century carved festoons of fruit and flowers. A moulded stone fireplace is present. The fine late 17th to early 18th-century staircase features twisted balusters, a pulvinated string, a moulded handrail, and newel posts with re-used carved figures to the sides and 15th-century poppyhead finials. Two heraldic panels on the landing display the arms and initials of the Pigott family. The drawing room and the room above in the southwest wing feature very good late 17th-century bolection panelling and moulded cornices. A first-floor room in the southeast corner contains later 18th-century wood-grained panelling and a moulded wooden fireplace.

The house stands on a moated site.