Stradey Castle

Stradey Castle

A fine house of two main phases both in Tudor style, constructed in coursed ashlar and roofed in slate. The earlier phase dates to 1847 and presents a symmetrical design with three gables to the main garden front facing south and two gables to the east. A large extension was added to the west in 1874, which includes a massive west tower. A single-storey unit containing the entrance to the housekeeper's quarters on the entrance front is probably also secondary.

The 1847 phase comprises two main storeys plus attic and basement. Its entrance front faces north and consists of a three-gable elevation with the central unit advanced and flanked by lower two-storey bays that are slightly less advanced. A single-storey T-plan porch projects from the front. The ashlar masonry features roll-moulded copings and string courses to the gable parapets and kneelers, with a weathered sill band. Windows are Tudor mullioned and transomed, of two or three lights, with dripmoulds; the window to the left is blind. The porch parapet is crenellated at the front, with an ogee gable incorporating panel and shield decoration above. A moulded four-centred open arch is carried on octagonal corner buttresses capped with ogee finials. The main garden front to the south is similarly detailed, but the outer advanced gabled bays feature two-storey canted bay windows with crenellated parapets. The central bay incorporates a range of four windows to each main storey, with the middle two and the attic window above being slightly advanced. Small grilled basement areas with hidden lights are visible. The secondary garden front to the east comprises three single-window units, the outer units advanced and incorporating blind attic windows, with one similar unit visible to the west. A steep slate roof is returned to each gable. Decorative tall octagonal chimney stacks on square bases rise from the building; one stack to the northeast has fallen, while others have been renewed in concrete.

The 1874 extension is constructed in similar masonry of slightly greyer colour. The north elevation of the linking block incorporates a group of five octagonal stacks on a slightly advanced full-height chimney breast. Two three-light windows to the right are separated by decorated linking panels, one of which contains a monogram dated 1874. A quatrefoil-decorated parapet sits above. At the right stands a four-storey staircase tower. The garden front of the linking block features a two-storey bay window with crenellated parapet and a plain main parapet above on corbels. The great terminal tower rises four storeys, with diagonal corner buttresses, a crenellated parapet, and a boldly corbelled octagonal corner lookout-turret with loopholes. The tower also carries a large wrought-iron weather vane. Its east side features a dramatically corbelled staircase, and its south side incorporates a two-storey canted oriel.

The interior layout of the 1847 phase is based on a longitudinal corridor. On the entrance side are the hall and library, both altered in 1874. On the garden side lies a fine suite of rooms including reception rooms of the original design: smaller and larger drawing rooms and a dining room. The drawing rooms have pedimented doorcases designed to create, when viewed from the smaller drawing room, a trompe l'oeil effect of distance through the reduced height of the further doorway. They feature marble chimneypieces by Bourneau and richly designed gilded ceilings with acanthus centrepieces and rococo borders. The dining room contrasts in style, suggesting redesign in 1874, with a ribbed ceiling, classical doorcases, baronial dadoes, and an extravagant Gothic overmantel featuring polygonal turrets.

The entrance and staircase of 1874 constitute the greatest feature of the house. The staircase space rises to a spectacular glazed lantern on a hammer-beam roof, the style reminiscent of Wyattville's work at Windsor. The hall is reached from the entrance through a crested and diamond-glazed screen, and features a timber ceiling with ribs and pendants and a hooded stone chimneypiece. The staircase rises on the axis of the hall to a long first-floor landing carried on an arcade over the original corridor, with two return flights continuing to the second-floor level. The joinery is in Jacobean style with lions in sitting position on the lowest newels and finials elsewhere. The lantern above features ramped panelled glazing. The joinery design is apparently by J C Buckler, and the work was made in sections by Rattee and Kent of Cambridge, brought to site piece by piece.

The corridor or occasional dining room in the link block to the tower is rendered in Tudor style with linenfold wall panelling and a ribbed ceiling. The adjacent billiards room has a similar ceiling. The room in the top storey of the link serves as the artist's studio of C W Mansel Lewis, with a large rooflight. In the tower, the ground-storey room, believed to have been the schoolroom, features a Tudor ceiling and an Adam and Eve chimneypiece. The upper parts of the tower remain unfinished but contain water tanks and a roof structure of shallow vaults on girders.