Shapwick House Hotel The Granary

Shapwick House Hotel’s granary is part of a country house set within landscaped grounds, now operating as a hotel with a portion of the original service wing used as a separate dwelling. The main house was originally built in 1630 for Sir Henry Rolle, Chief Justice to Charles I, and underwent significant alterations in the late 18th century for George Templar. A clock tower, dated 1865 and likely designed by George Gilbert Scott, marks a restoration.

The house is constructed from coursed and squared blue lias rubble with slate roofs, coped verges, ball finials, and diagonally grouped chimney stacks with ashlar capping. It exhibits a Jacobean style with later 18th-century modifications, particularly to the entrance front. The layout is based on an E-plan, with three storeys and a two-storey and attic section. The front features a five-bay arrangement, with projecting wings and front-facing gables. It has paired 12 and 18-pane sash windows with central dividing mullions, set within shallow, full-height canted bays with lead roofs. Other windows are 18-pane sashes, except for the two-light stone-mullioned windows with ovolo moulding in half-dormers on the second floor.

A central, slender, three-storey, gabled porch projects from the front, featuring three-light stone-mullioned windows, with a double transomed window on the first floor. The doorcase is of dressed stone, elaborately moulded and keyed with a semi-circular head, spandrels with acanthus enrichment, a triglyph frieze, Doric pilasters, a moulded cornice, and three ball finials, supporting modern doors.

A domestic wing is attached to the left return. A prominent feature is the arcaded wooden bellcote with an ogee-shaped lead dome and windvane, standing on a projecting clock tower with an offset. This wing also has two, three, and four-light stone-mullioned windows, some transomed, with two in half-dormers; some windows are modern replacements. Two large, seven-light canted bays are located at the rear.

The interior is largely of the late 18th century, including a hall with a flagstone floor, a marble fireplace with colonnettes incorporating a cast-iron fireback dated 1727, and a ground floor room with panelling and a fireplace. There is an open-well staircase with a ramped handrail, and a secondary, smaller staircase. Other noteworthy features include ornamental plasterwork, dado panelling, doors, window shutters, a 17th-century fireplace on the first floor, and reused 17th-century panelling in a rear ground floor room.