Leonard Wills Field Centre
LEONARD WILLS FIELD CENTRE
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- I
- List Entry Number:
- 1173856
- Date first listed:
- 22-May-1969
- List Entry Name:
- Leonard Wills Field Centre
- Statutory Address:
- LEONARD WILLS FIELD CENTRE
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2004-05-25
- Reference:
- IOE01/12361/29
- Rights:
- © Mr John H. Sparkes. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- I
- List Entry Number:
- 1173856
- Date first listed:
- 22-May-1969
- Date of most recent amendment:
- 21-Dec-1984
- List Entry Name:
- Leonard Wills Field Centre
- Statutory Address 1:
- LEONARD WILLS FIELD CENTRE
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
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.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
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.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- LEONARD WILLS FIELD CENTRE
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- District:
- Somerset (Unitary Authority)
- Parish:
- Nettlecombe
- National Park:
- Exmoor
- National Grid Reference:
- ST 05646 37755
Details
ST03NE NETTLECOMBE CP
5/33 Leonard Wills Field Centre (formerly listed as Nettlecombe Court)
22.5.69
GV I
Shown on OS map as Nettlecombe Court (school). Manor house, now field studies centre. Late medieval hall, cross passage and wing, now kitchens and pantry, 1599 entrance front, porch, great hall and parlour, circa 1641 addition to rear of great hall, 1703-7 South West front extended and staircase added in angle, plasterwork on stair 1753, South West wing decorated 1787-8, house stuccoed and North East service range added early C19, stucco removed mid C20. Squared and coursed red sandstone, moulded plinth, coped parapets, finials, slate roofs, hipped right. Plan: hall and screens passage, to right "L"-shaped block of earlier house with later wing forming service, courtyard, left of hall South West wing, the garden front, staircase in angle. 2 and 3 storeys, 2:1:2:1:2:2 bays; 3 storey gabled porch fith bay right, 3 and a half storey left gable end 2 bays, openings blocked, first floor 3-light ovolo-moulded mullions, except 4 bays right, all 12 pane sash windows, third bay left under stone relieving arch 3 x 5 pane mullioned transomed oriel window two hall windows right 3 x 3 light, also under relieving arches, Tudor arch opening to porch set in square hood mould, date 1599 in spandrel. Left return, garden front brick faced, 2 storeys, central attic gabled window, 9 bays, C20 4 pane sash windows, central pedimented Ionic porch. Kitchen courtyard has late C17 leaded cruciform windows and reset moulded medieval doorcases in North East wing. Interior: fine strapwork moulded plaster ceiling with pendents in Great Hall, plaster work overmantel, early C18 bolection moulded panelling, decorated organ in gallery of 1666 by John Loosemore, repaired and enlarged C19; stair with turned balusters, inlaid landing floors, and delicate rococo plasterwork; heavy plasterwork decoration in small dining parlour behind great hall, dated 1641, similar in room above; circa 1700 plasterwork in office, similar in room above; Adam style decoration in South West wing under direction of Samuel Heal, ceiling and marble fireplace in drawing room, Ionic screen and plasterwork cornice to dining room. The house became a boys' preparatory school in 1963 and the Leonard Wills Field Centre in 1967. A fine collection of interiors, notable for having good examples of plasterwork for 5 different periods, only C19 examples are absent. (Photograph in NMR, VCH Somerset, vol 5 forthcoming; Bush and Corbett, Nettlecombe Court, Field studies 4, 1970; Country Life, I February 1908).
Listing NGR: ST0564637755
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 264791
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Dunning, R W, The Victoria History of the County of Somerset, (1985)
Field Studies in Field Studies, Vol. 4, (1970)
Country Life in 1 February, (1908)
Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 37 Somerset,
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 05-Jun-2026 at 14:33:49.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.