Details
CHIPPENHAM ST9273SW ST MARY STREET
930-1/10/201 (North side)
25/04/50 No.61
and attached rear garden walls GV II* House, now offices. 1702 (deed). Limestone ashlar facade;
rubblestone to the rest; Flemish-bond brick turret with burnt
headers, freestone quoins and dressings and hipped slate roof;
stone slate double-pitched roof with lateral brick stacks to
the valley of the main block.
PLAN: double-depth central-entry through-passage plan with a
turret to rear left and projecting C19 1st-floor closet on
cast-iron columns to centre of rear landing. C20 rear
extension. The turret may be a former rear stair turret but it
is more likely to have been a lobby and entrance to the
kitchen and a closet to the 1st floor.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with attic and cellar; symmetrical
5-window range. The facade has a moulded cornice, sills to 1st
floor and sill string course to the ground floor; chamfered
rusticated quoins. The central bay is set slightly forward
under a small pediment to the centre of the cornice. The
painted stone doorcase has a similar pediment on the scroll
brackets at string course level. The tall cyma-moulded
architrave has a C19 6-panel door and an overlight with
coloured triangular panes. Painted moulded architraves to
6/6-pane sash windows to the 1st floor and plate-glass sash
windows to the ground floor. The rear has various C18 and C19
windows.
INTERIOR: the central axial wall is almost 1m thick and
accommodates the stacks that rise from the roof valley. The
most complete room is to the front ground-floor left. It has
full-height painted pine panelling with a fine box cornice; a
white marble fireplace (probably mid/late C18) to the centre
of the rear wall with a narrow horizontal panel of grained
wood or plaster with richly raised rococo moulding and an
animal to the centre; above it is a raised panel with
bolection moulding; thick skirting boards and dado rail, all
have returned mouldings at the openings; raised-and-fielded
panelling to the window shutters, the 8-panel door and the
soffits and backs of depressed pointed-arched recesses
flanking the fireplace, that to the left has a door to the
rear kitchen. Wide pine floorboards.
The room to the front ground-floor right, formerly similar,
now has a late C19 ornamented cornice and ceiling rose;
similar arched recesses without panelling (to the right is a
passage to the rear room) flanking a mid C19 white marble
fireplace with anthemion motifs to the corners; the original
8-panel door is glazed to the centre; C19 high skirting
boards.
The central entry hall has late C19 polychromatic tiles; a
semicircular arch through the thick central wall has a moulded
keystone and archivolt, panelled fronts and soffits and fluted
returns.
The room to the ground-floor rear right, formerly a kitchen,
has a stone Tudor-arched surround and a timber overmantel and
cornice to an open fire against the central wall; 2 plastered
chamfered crossbeams with run-out stops and a C19 dresser to
the left-hand wall still on a flagstone base, other flagstones
are removed. Mid C19 8-over-8 pane sash window.
The small room to the ground-floor rear to the right of the
rear stairwell is altered.
The open-well, open-string staircase has a swept skirting,
fretted ends and probably C20 thin turned balusters and newel
to a wreathed handrail, and raised-and-fielded panelling below
and to the 4-panel cellar door. The richly-moulded stairwell
cornice has egg-and-dart moulding to the base. Doors to the
1st floor are 6-panel.
The room to the 1st-floor front right is partitioned. The rear
wall has a returned cyma-moulded cornice to full-height
raised-and-fielded panelling with cupboards, flanking an early
C19 fireplace.
The room to the 1st-floor rear right has 2 boxed-in cross
beams and in the rear left corner, steps down to a small
closet in the brick turret which has thick glazing bars to a
9/9-pane sash window.
The rear 1st-floor closet has painted-over margin panes
flanking a C20 door.
To the centre front of the landing between the rooms are 2
cupboards, one with a 4-panel door contains winding stairs
with oak treads to the extensive attics. Both ranges are 4-bay
collar-truss roofs with a central roof connecting front and
rear ranges. Some of the tenoned purlins are rough, implying
others are later; the collars are nailed. The wide boards,
partly covered, are oak or elm.
The cellar is approached by stone steps under the stairs, a
narrow barrel-vaulted tunnel leads the vaulted area under the
front right-hand room. Some original shelves and a cupboard
remain against the right-hand wall.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the garden to the rear (now occupied by a
C20 extension) is enclosed by a stone-coped brick wall (in
English Garden Wall bond) attached to the rear. That to the
right is a substantial retaining wall approx 40m long, which
sweeps up toward the end with a door and steps to the land
outside which is approx 2m lower.
The facade is of a similar design to No.19 (qv). Listing NGR: ST9222673304
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
462432
Legacy System:
LBS
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