Slebech Park

Slebech Park

Slebech Park is an imposing late Georgian house constructed of rendered stonework. With its strongly advancing bowed wings, it presents a striking architectural composition. The parapet has been reduced. The building is of three storeys at the front and four storeys at the side and back.

The entrance facade faces rising ground and is approached via a small porch. The falling ground at the rear, which commands fine views over the estuary, is reserved for the best reception rooms. The front elevation features a straight range of five windows, with three additional windows in each of the semi-circular advancing wings. The rear elevation has four windows in the main range plus three in each wing. The side elevation to the south-west contains five windows. Where original fireplaces or other obstructions occur, some windows are blind, but unusually these are provided with full window joinery and glazing. All windows are of sash type with concealed frames. Top floor windows have six panes, basement windows nine, and windows elsewhere twelve. Many of the original hornless sashes remain in place, and a large amount of handmade glass survives. In the curved bays, the joinery is also formed on the curve.

The central open entrance porch is semicircular, with plain round columns or half columns lacking capitals. It appears to be an afterthought to the design. The porch roof is flat with a small crenellated parapet on corbels. The porch is paved in limestone and features a six-panel door in doorcasing with shallow thin pilasters and no fanlight.

A three-bay service wing extends to the north-east, with a massive end chimney. The wing encloses a domestic yard informally linked to the stable block.

The plan of Slebech Park is symmetrical and two rooms deep. While the layout of rooms and staircases is basic, the main rooms contain high quality Adamesque detail with fireplaces, cornices and joinery designed in matching schemes.

The central entrance hall is flanked by spine corridors with enclosed staircases on each side of the hall. The main stair to the south-west is modest, with stick balusters (three per tread) and a scrolled mahogany handrail. The north-west stair, also with stick balusters and full height, was partly replaced in the twentieth century. To the rear of the hall is the original saloon, now the dining room. To the left and right of this core are the bowed front and rear wings containing reception rooms, including the drawing room to the south-east, study to the south-west, library to the north-east, and a nursery (former dining room) to the north-west. The spinal corridor continues north-east into the service range.

The entrance hall features a grey veined marble neo-Jacobean chimneypiece with pilasters and strapwork, imported in the later twentieth century. A plaster Doric frieze is matched in the timber cornice over the front door. The plaster ceiling rose is probably mid-nineteenth century. Plain flush doors to the corridor flank each side. The dining room opposite is finely proportioned and retains six-panel mahogany doors with Doric architraves, an Adam-style ceiling cornice and a chimneypiece in the style of Henry Cheere purchased at the Stackpole Court sale and installed in 1971. This chimneypiece has red veined marble with white marble enrichment and a central frieze tablet depicting a hound chasing a hare. The ceiling feature and cornice have small modillions and dentils. Six-panel mahogany doors open off the spine passages to the reception rooms; those to the study and drawing rooms have gilded oak-leaf carving (purchased from Stackpole Court) added to their architraves.

The drawing room has an Adamesque plaster frieze and a fine original marble chimneypiece with tapering fluted pilasters and a carved central panel. Originally there were large oval and square wall panels, which were scraped off at a later date, their outlines still visible. A Victorian ceiling rose is present. Architraves to windows and doors have fluted detail and corner roundels, matched in the dado rail.

The study contains a good plaster frieze and a marble chimneypiece with tapering fluted standards and a central tablet with garlanded urns flanking anthemions. Window and door architraves have a carved lozenge pattern, matched in the dado rails.

The library retains its original painted bookcases, restored in 1960. Opposite the original chimneypiece is a long seven-bay range of bookcases, with the central and penultimate bays wider. Flanking the centre are narrow break-front bays. Each side of the chimneypiece is a single bay bookcase. All bookcases have pilasters with delicate droplet detail and cornices with fluting and corner ovals. The fluted-and-oval sill of the bookcases is matched in the dado rail. A delicate plaster frieze of ovals and urns is matched in the central tablet of the original chimneypiece, which is of white marble with some red marble inlay. The chimneypiece has scrolled sides and repeated anthemions flanking the tablet.

The nursery has an imported timber fire surround and a plaster frieze of repeated palmettes.

On the first floor, the former music room to the south-west has a plaster frieze of alternating triglyphs and panels depicting musical instruments. Its original marble chimneypiece is of white marble with red inlay, its frieze matching that of the cornice, with a central tablet depicting crossed lyre and horn. Over the hall, the bedroom frieze has alternating shields and crossed lancets. Other bedrooms have imported fireplaces but retain original simple cornices. The attic rooms are plain.