Montacute House

Country house built circa 1590-1601, probably by William Arnold for Sir Edward Phelips, and remodelled 1785-87. Built in ham stone ashlar with Welsh slate roofs behind open balustered parapets topped with obelisk finials. The roof features coped gables, some in Dutch style, and ashlar chimney stacks including plain stacks set diagonally and stacks with Doric columns.

The house is arranged in an H-plan with three storeys, an attic and a basement. The east elevation is the original entrance facade, with thirteen bays of which the outer and centre bays project. The elevation has a plinth and string courses beneath an open parapet. Windows are hollow-chamfer mullioned and transomed, set in wave mould recesses. The outer bays have angled bay windows of one and five lights plus one light, spanning two storeys and crowned with segmental pediments. Above these are five-light windows and three-light attic windows with labels set in Dutch gables. The returns have six- and four-light windows. The crosswing windows comprise three-, three-, five-, three- and three-lights flanking a central bay, with the two lower floors double-transomed. The lower five-light windows project slightly under pediments at first floor level. The centre bay has four-light windows and three-light windows on the returns to the first and second floors. The former entrance features a semi-circular arched doorway with lozenge-decorated imposts and keystone, topped with a small plaque. Above this and over the five window bays runs a semi-circular arched parapet with a statue in a niche to the centre bay. Statues sit in shell-head niches between all second floor windows, circular niches sit under the principal first floor windows, and pairs of shell-head niches with seats occupy the ground floor level.

The west elevation, now the principal entrance, was added 1785-87, possibly designed by Edward Phelips and a local builder. It incorporates major fragments from Clifton Maybank House, Yeovil, dated circa 1546-64. This elevation is also thirteen bays wide, with bays one to three and eleven to thirteen being surviving 16th-century work featuring four-light mullioned and transomed windows and three-light attic windows in Dutch gables. Bays two, three, eleven and twelve have been extended to accommodate stairs, with matching windows at staggered levels; the remainder are recessed. The second floor is set back further. Bays five and nine have four-light windows to the two lower levels, while second floor windows of three lights occupy bays four, six, eight and ten. Gables with chimneys sit above bays five and nine. A three-storey porch occupies bay seven, with a moulded four-centre arch to an open porch and a matching inner doorway. Above is an elaborately carved heraldic panel, originally from Clifton Maybank but with Phelips arms substituted, then two three-light windows and a stepped gable. The centre section features reclaimed fluted pilaster shafts with heraldic beasts on the parapets.

The north and south elevations are almost identical, each with four bays. They feature composite oriel windows of two plus six plus two wide lights, with the outer pairs double-transomed and flat, and the centre semi-circular on plan with quadruple-transoming, topped by Dutch gables.

Inside, a vaulted cross-entrance lobby leads to a screens passage with a stone screen to the north and a panelled hall with plaster frieze, fireplace and decorative plasterwork panel, all early 17th century. To the south is the dining room, reshaped in the 19th century and furnished with wallpaper and a fireplace from Coleshill House, Berkshire. The south-west parlour retains a 16th-century chimney piece, frieze and panelling. The stairs, occupying bays two to three and eleven to twelve of the west elevation, are original and 2.15 metres wide, built round a central stone core. On the first floor, the north-east room served as library or great chamber and contains an important 'porch' chimney piece, plaster frieze and stained glass, all original work. The second floor contains the long gallery, now modified.

The Phelips family was established in the area before 1466. Edward Phelips, the original builder, was a wealthy lawyer. The family occupied the house until the end of the 19th century. In 1915 it was leased to Lord Curzon. In 1931 the property was purchased by the SPAB (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) and presented to the National Trust.