NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK STAFF COLLEGE - MAIN HOUSE

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1052781
Date first listed:: 27-Aug-1957
List Entry Name:: NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK STAFF COLLEGE - MAIN HOUSE
Statutory Address:: NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK STAFF COLLEGE - MAIN HOUSE

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2005-02-02
Reference:: IOE01/13477/03
Rights:: © Mrs Sarah L McKenna. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1052781
Date first listed:: 27-Aug-1957
Date of most recent amendment:: 30-Aug-1988
List Entry Name:: NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK STAFF COLLEGE - MAIN HOUSE
Statutory Address 1:: NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK STAFF COLLEGE - MAIN HOUSE

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK STAFF COLLEGE - MAIN HOUSE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Oxfordshire
District:: West Oxfordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Heythrop
National Grid Reference:: SP 36391 26437

Details

HEYTHROP HEYTHROP PARK SP32NE 5/85 National Westminster Bank 27/08/57 Staff College - Main House (Formerly listed as Heythrop House (College of St. Robert Bellarmine))

GV II*

Country house (main range). Circa 1705 by Thomas Archer for Charles Talbot, first Duke of Shrewsbury; gutted by fire 1831; restored and partly rebuilt 1871 by Alfred Waterhouse for Albert Brassey. Limestone ashlar; Welsh-slate roofs with ashlar stacks. Double-courtyard plan, partly infilled. Baroque style. 2 storeys plus concealed attic on a semi-basement. Symmetrical entrance front has bay divisions of 2:2:3:2:2 with the end sections breaking forward and the centre recessed behind a projecting portico; a grand order of Corinthian pilasters and columns, rising from a rusticated basement, supports a deep entablature incorporating consoles on the projecting sections and modillions on the recessed bays. Roof has a high balustraded parapet. Windows have elaborate eared and shouldered stone architraves, at ground floor with straight entablatures but at first floor with large double-stepped keyblocks, and the return walls of the central recess have architraved niches to both floors. Central doorway has a fine perspective doorcase with a concave entablature carried on scrolls and supporting a large stone trophy of arms. Carved panels within the first-floor windows are the only C19 alteration. Broad steps to portico are flanked by walls terminating in panelled pedestals carrying large C19 iron lamp standards. Garden front has similar 2-bay projections flanking a 9-bay central section, which is unornamented save for horizontal rustication and the Doric doorcase; the basement of the central section is in plain ashlar but has architraved windows with scrolled pediments. The balustraded double stair rises over an arched recess with vermiculated voussoirs. 9-window return fronts break forward in the middle 5 bays between rusticated quoin strips and have architraved windows, at first floor with keyblocks, but the north front also has horizontal and vertical bands between the windows, and the central window has an inverted pediment on tapering pilasters. Interior: C19 arcaded 2-storey hall in Baroque style has a large fireplace and clerestory windows with figures of Faith, Hope and Charity by Morris and Co; the stone staircase rises behind the lower arcade. Principal's Lounge and Charlbury Room have heavy C19 panelling, fireplaces and coffered ceilings, the doors with ebony mouldings on mahogany and walnut. Wedgwood Room has an Adam-style ceiling and a white marble fireplace inset with 5 Classical Wedgwood panels and with Oriental porcelain panels in the splays. Bar has a marble fireplace with Tuscan columns and a central relief of a child leading a lion. Heythrop Room has a vaulted ceiling and a small fireplace inlaid with coloured marble. The original design may have been influenced by a scheme of Paolo Falconieri and includes details from Italian sources; it was executed by Francis Smith of Warwick. Heythrop is Archer's most important country house. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: pp647-9; VCH: Oxfordshire: Vol XI, p135; Country Life: 1905: Vol 18, pp270-6) -

Listing NGR: SP3639126437

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 253266
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Sherwood, J, The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, (1974), 647-9
Salzman, L F, The Victoria History of the County of Oxford, (1983), 135
'Country Life' in Country Life, (1905)
Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 34 Oxfordshire

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.