Stable and Kitchen Court

Stable and Kitchen Court

This is a substantial country house of Grade I importance, originally built as a square, two-storey-and-attic structure with five bays and deep bracketed eaves, topped by a pyramid roof with an off-centre diagonal apex stack and large E stack. Three-bay pediments decorate each front.

Before 1902, the main elevations were plain stucco, though originally roughcast, with arcading over the ground floor centre windows. The north front was given an ashlar five-bay addition with Doric columns, broken forward to form a centre porch. Between 1902 and 1907, the house underwent major reclad work using unpainted roughcast with heavy rock-faced grey Forest of Dean stone quoins and window surrounds featuring triple keystones. The pediment lunettes were replaced except in the east pediment, though the basic window spacings and 12-pane sashes were retained.

The ground before the south front was excavated to expose Nash's basement as a full storey, built out with a five-bay balustraded terrace flanked by broad flights of steps. A carved ground floor doorcase marks the entrance. On each side, single-storey four-bay wings were added with arched windows and bracketed eaves cornice, raised on a high terrace.

Roughcast two-storey service ranges extend to the east, forming a narrow kitchen court immediately east of the house and a larger stable court beyond. A timber octagonal clock-turret originally crowned the north ridge, replaced in 1828. The service ranges are generally plainly detailed, rendered within, with casement windows and hipped roofs, with some early twentieth-century alterations evident.

Nash's original plan comprised a northeast morning-room, northwest drawing-room, southwest dining-room, and southeast anteroom, connected via a small octagonal lobby to a rectangular inner hall fully open on the east to an apsidal stair hall. Around 1830, an addition enlarged the northeast room, added a square bay to the hall, and a two-bay space with basement stairs. The 1902-7 work transformed the dining-room into a library, added an east dining-room and west ballroom in the wings.

The entrance is a tight octagon, plaster-vaulted with high arches to four sides and niches between. The centre rectangle has an oval fluted flat ceiling and a broad arch opening to the stair-hall, which features a rosette to the ceiling and a corniced window in the apse. A fine cantilevered stone stair, made in Bristol, has a simple iron rail.

The library retains a Corinthian columned east end from Nash's work, plus a fine inserted timber fireplace of the 1820s by J Ramsden of Neath, and early twentieth-century doorcases east and west. The adjoining ante-room is plainer, with a modillion cornice and an Edwardian panelled plaster ceiling in circa 1700 style, raised in the centre above a high fireplace. The dining-room is very ornate, with a low heavily panelled plaster ceiling in circa 1700 style, raised centrally in a high coved ridged rectangle, an Ionic west screen, panelled walls, and a large east fireplace with cartouche over. The east ballroom is sumptuous, with crossed pairs of columns at each side of the north and south walls. The west end features a Venetian window with ornate plaster over, matched above the east door and in the arched recesses north and south; the north recess contains a monumental alabaster fireplace with giant swan-neck pediment and flanking swagged obelisks.

Upstairs, Nash's plan survives with Edwardian details such as fireplaces. A rectangular centre space with a small apse-ended lobby to the south contains the main corner bedrooms with plain but inventively-planned small dressing rooms between on the north, west, and south fronts. Fine Gothic plaster detailing ornaments the circa 1830 entry and two-bay lobby to the right.

The basement retains Nash's plaster vaults and extends under the terrace.