Burwood House And Attached Outbuilding

Burwood House is a former house, now offices, dating from the late 16th and 17th centuries, with a later 18th or 19th century wing and outbuilding. It is located in Wells. The original fabric is local stone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has a clay pantile roof behind coped gables, with brick chimney stacks. The plan comprises a cross-passage front range, a shallow wing to the rear left, a long gabled wing to the right, and a two-storey outbuilding attached to the left by an enclosing boundary wall, forming a courtyard arrangement.

The main front is two storeys with attic windows, and has three bays. The outer bays have shallow, two-storey canted bays with ovolo-mould mullioned casements of 1+3+1 lights, set under hood moulds and hipped Welsh slate roofs. The central bay features a 16-pane sash window with exposed boxes under a square label, and a wide six-panel door with plain casing and a timber pediment hood on brackets. Attic windows in the gables are two-light ovolo-mould mullioned with traces of labels. The south gable is rendered with 20th-century windows to the first floor and attic.

The north wall of the wing is built of rubble and has a pantile roof, a central ridge stack, an elliptical archway leading to an entrance with "Burwood House" painted above it, two two-light casements to the first floor, and a return gable with a central plank door.

The inspected portion of the ground floor contains a cross-passage with stone flagging. To the right is a large room featuring a fireplace backing onto the passage, with a large four-centred stone surround, moulded detail and incised spandrels, partially obscured by plastering. Above the fireback is an inset initialled plaque. A large central beam is also obscured by plastering. In the rear-left corner are remains of a winder staircase with a solid string, splat balusters, and square incised newels with ball finials. A doorway with a four-centred head remains in the rear wall. One room has a central beam with ovolo-moulding, and remnants of two doorways with panelled linings. One of these doorways has a blocked six-pane light. A fireback is inscribed 'PPM 1680'.

The property was once a house of some importance, with its own service yard, although it is now somewhat isolated by later developments.