Penoyre House

Penoyre House is a substantial country house built in the Italianate style using Bath stone, comprising three storeys with three principal facades, a brick service range across the rear, and a long single-storey orangery extending westward from the north end of the west front.

The principal south facade consists of a five-bay block (with outer bays more closely spaced) beneath a hipped slate roof and two centre ashlar panelled chimneystacks with gabled caps. The facade features a moulded eaves cornice with lion-masks in the top moulding and modillions, with a deep frieze incorporating a guilloche band below the upper windows. Windows throughout are set in shouldered architraves with husk drop ornament beneath the shoulders. The second-floor windows are square casement-pairs with panelled sills interrupting a moulded string course. The first floor contains long windows with casements and top lights in similar architraves but with frieze, cornice and pediment, the friezes and cornices linked by wave-pattern decoration. The centre window has additional side-lights with matching frieze and cornice. The ground floor is set within a fine classical loggia extending one bay beyond the main block on each side, returning down the east and west fronts. Within the loggia are long windows with top-lights in simple raised surrounds, the centre one also having long side-lights. The loggia is balustraded with piers over the divisions below. A deep frieze and cornice break forward over channelled piers at the centre bay and rusticated-arched outer bays. The openings are arranged 2-1-2 with Roman Doric columns (centre columns in the 2-bay sections and attached column responds). The outer pavilions are arched on all four sides with two arches within the loggias.

The east end is windowless, with all string courses carried around and a similar but larger chimney positioned at the right corner of the roof. Two bays of the loggia feature a centre column, column responds, and a rusticated right pier. An entrance tower is joined at an angle to the loggia via a short single-window link at first-floor level.

The tower is square in plan with a rusticated ground floor, two ashlar floors above, and a large open belvedere stage topped with a pyramid slate roof. Mouldings are generally carried around the tower, with a cornice over the ground floor, a first-floor sill course, a cornice over the first floor featuring a wave-mould frieze, a sill course under the second floor, and a deep frieze and main cornice beneath the belvedere. The ground floor features a large arched opening with radiating voussoirs on the south side, an impost band, and a massive bearded-head keystone. Within the arch is an ashlar recess with panelled pilasters and panels to the arch and top roundel, framing a triple window with a plain fanlight. The first and second floors have broad outer piers with mouldings carried across and upper cornices breaking forward. The first floor contains a window with architrave, its head positioned between large ashlar scrolled brackets forming part of the second-floor balcony with a pierced ashlar balustrade of intersected circles and outer piers. The second floor has a long casement-pair with architrave, cutting through a sill course which aligns with the balcony rail. The belvedere features broad outer piers with plinths, paired applied pilasters, and a deep entablature with lower parts breaking forward. A broad centre has its plinth broken for a centre balustrade under the main opening, with narrow sidelights flanked by square piers with matching responds. The entablature above is set back from that over the outer piers, though the eaves cornice with lion-masks is continuous. The east face is similar with the main entry in the ground-floor arch, featuring double half-glazed doors and a plain fanlight. The Watkins arms are displayed in stone on the cornice above the bearded-mask keystone. The north side matches the south side. To the right is an ashlar, plainer two-storey range of six bays with the right end slightly projected. Architraves to windows are similar to those elsewhere but without pediments, with a cornice over the ground floor and at the eaves.

The west front is similar to the south front but longer, with a large bowed centre and a canted slated roof. The centre is flanked by two similar chimneys, with a larger plainer example at the left corner of the range. The front has five bays with additional blank features between the outer windows: a blank plain recess to the second floor and a blank arched niche in a moulded frame to the first floor. The ground-floor loggia matches that elsewhere. The bowed centre features a triple window on each floor, similar in detail but with narrow sidelights. The long first-floor triple window has a curved pediment on consoles over the centre. The loggia has a three-bay bowed centre with two columns and attached responds. Within the loggia, the ground floor is windowless to the right, while the bowed centre has a long French window with sidelights. The left side has a door in architrave.

The northwest two-storey range at right angles has a loggia carried across its front, though glazed. The range behind comprises two bays with a pediment over the left bay and a first-floor window in shouldered architrave; the right bay has a similar window. A ridge chimney sits between the bays. An ashlar one-bay west side has a first-floor window, with the roof hipped to the northwest angle.

The orangery to the west is single-storey, echoing the loggia in having framing channelled piers over which the main entablature breaks forward. However, it uses square piers instead of columns for the six full-height glazed openings. The glazing is full-height and tripartite with small panes, the upper ones painted white.

The end pavilion, which originally had a very tall pointed glazed dome, then a glazed pyramid roof, now has a low pyramid covered in roofing felt and flat roofs. It has a square plan with channelled angle piers over which the main frieze and cornice break forward, and a long narrow window on each side of a projecting glazed portico. Porticoes on the west, south and north sides feature the same entablature over the main centre opening flanked by extremely narrow sidelights between paired pilasters, with glazing also in the sides of each portico. The glazing features small panes with thick mullion and transom, with double half-glazed doors to the west and south.

The rear service range runs across the back, continuing from the hipped corner of the northwest range to abut the rear of the range to the right of the entrance tower. Built in pink-painted brick with small-paned sashes, it is two storeys over two bays to the right (rear of the northwest wing) and three storeys over five main bays, with continuous eaves on square dentils. Three ridge stacks feature, with the roof leaded except on the northwest section. A timber decorative half-hipped canopy on the upper floor, possibly sheltering a bell, is present. To the left, a similar painted brick return forms the rear of the range to the right of the entrance tower, also brick-faced on its hipped north end.

North of the service range is a detached parallel range, once linked by a bridge. Built in red brick and two storeys, it features a small Italianate tower with a timber pyramid-roofed top stage at its east end. The range comprises seven bays with coach arches to the ground floor and windows above, all beneath a hipped roof.

The interior plan revolves around a central square hall opening onto a grand stair to the north, with a polygonal small ante-hall and square porch under the tower to the east. The green drawing room (dining-room) is positioned to the northeast, while the blue drawing room (library) extends across the centre and the two east bays of the south front. The two west bays are occupied by the end of the ballroom, which includes the two south bays and the large curved centre of the west front. Rear service ranges and kitchen are accessed to the rear, with a long single-storey orangery running west from the northwest corner, featuring a cruciform west-end feature that was formerly a giant pointed glass dome and later served as a billiard room.

The full-height hall contains an imperial staircase with a first-floor balustraded gallery behind marbled Corinthian piers, with domed lanterns above. Detailing includes arabesque lunettes, painted friezes, pedimented doorcases, niches and archways with guilloche surrounds.

The en suite public rooms comprise a southeast library with coffered plaster ceiling and columned screen; a southwest ballroom with panelled dados and an Edwardian dining piece with bowed end; and a northeast dining room with rich plasterwork ceiling bands and an original chimney-piece. The bedrooms include an oval room positioned above the ballroom.