Sker House

Built of local sandstone rubble, with ashlar detailing and slate roofs. The mid C16 remodelling provided a grand first-floor hall with dais at the N end, with 3-storey wings on the E front affording a fashionable elevation symmetrical in its main elements. Tall stone stacks. The original main entrance was probably inconspicuous, set in the SE wing as Chastelton, Oxon. The main stair was in a projection at the rear (W), serving the upper end of the hall.

The main E front has two 4-light stone mullioned and transomed windows to the first floor hall. The gabled 3-storey wings also have stone mullioned windows, diminishing from 4-light to 2-light to the second floor. An attic floor exists at the N end. Blocked doors in the re-entrant angle, that on the S with a Tudor arch. Three-light similar windows to the N outer wing, the outer face of which is set at an unexplained angle, and rises to a dramatic gable window constrained between two tall stacks. A further added lower building continues N to the garden wall. The rear has a large projecting stair tower with a roof parallel to the main range; one 2-light mullioned window with label hood. A bridge section carries the second floor to a narrow rear extension of the N range with a monopitch roof. A four-light mullioned and transomed window to the S of the stair tower lights the dais end of the hall. Further ranges to the S extend rearwards, one containing a secondary stair. The S end has collapsed, but had similar stone mullioned windows with wine-glass ogee chamfer stops. A large doorway now blocked, opened to the gardens on the W side of the house. This S end of the house, of at least two builds, extends for some 18m to the E, climbing the hill, and contains one large blocked opening, and continues to the E at an angle as the front garden wall.

The interior of the building is in a very poor and dangerous condition at the time of survey, and the state accommodation on the upper floors could not be seen. The NW stair rises in short flights around a rectangular newel. The hall is said to have a plaster frieze around all four walls, with modelled dragons, birds, bunches of grapes, and originally had a plaster coved ceiling, perhaps a later insertion. Late C16 -early C17 oak panelled dado. Tudor fireplace on the N side.