The East Curtain Wall with Turrets, Compton Castle

MATERIALS: Ham stone, cut and squared, with ashlar dressings.

PLAN: the walling is roughly semicircular on plan, enclosing the area around the eastern side of the house. To the east, in line with the principal entrance of the house, two circular turrets serve as gate piers for the approach to the house. Two more turrets stand to the south of the house. These formerly served as piers marking the point in the drive where it passed between the rear area of the house and the wider park, and now form the entrance into the southern formal garden. There are four further turrets, two to either side of the central piers, spaced at intervals.

TURRETS: the slender turrets are very similar in style to those which mark the corners of the house. The turrets have castellated parapets, and some have a pointed opening to the west, in some cases with an arrow loop above and/or one to the east, and others have western niche. The majority are circular on plan, with one square turret to the south, and one to the north. The wrought-iron gates between the eastern piers are thought to be a later introduction. Between the two southern piers, the inserted wall of c 1911 is broken by a central doorway taking the form of a Tudor arch of three orders with hollow spandrels below a hoodmould, the whole having a stone coping. There are arrow loops to either side of the doorway.

WALLS: the wall serves as a retaining wall to the raised area of ground it encloses, rising to an average of 3 metres in height on the east face. Simple steps are built into the walls at occasional intervals, and there are also more recent steps set against the eastern face.

We have considered whether powers of exclusion under s.1 (5A) of the 1990 Act are appropriate, and consider they are not.