Widcombe Manor and Cottage

Details

CHURCH STREET Widcombe (West side) Widcombe Manor and Cottage (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH STREET, Widcombe (West side) Widcombe Manor House) 12/06/50

GV I

Large detached house in own grounds. c1727 for Philip Bennet, possibly by Nathanial Ireson of Wincanton. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, stone slate roofs, but slate to internal slopes. PLAN: L-plan main range with symmetrical entrance front to south, extended frontage with large full height bay on garden return, plain hipped end lies adjacent to Church Street immediately opposite Church of St Thomas (qv), and rear has small courtyard and attached Widcombe Cottage. EXTERIOR: Two storeys, attic and basement. Entrance front has two small twelve-pane pedimented dormers, above two+three+two bays with deep twelve-pane sashes in moulded architraves with prominent embellished keystones and to bracketed sills at first floor, each side of central brought forward feature with radial elliptical oculus with swags in moulded closed pediment, above small six-pane flanking nine-pane with arched radial head, as opened out Palladian window. Ground floor are arched eight-pane with intersecting bars flanking central glazed door in Doric doorcase with triglyph frieze and closed segmental pediment. Heads of sashes are visible to channelled basement rising to moulded lower sill level, as base to paired fluted Ionic pilasters at each end and to centre unit, also channelled. Full entablature with modillion cornice, has parapet with open balustrades above windows, and terminal urns. Above outermost pilasters are richly carved armorial cartouches set to cornice. Roof hipped and returned, with inner valley. Main garden facade repeats detailing of front, with doubled quoin pilasters, and twelve-pane sashes each side of bold canted bay with single pilasters, and eight-pane sashes to each facet. To left, set slightly back, further two-bays, with two dormers above paired twelve-pane sashes. Return opposite church plain, with two twelve-pane dormers. Wall in fine ashlar at right hand end, but dressed square masonry for remainder, to straight joint. Terminal urns to parapet, and large two-stage ashlar stack at corner. Main range returns, with two further dormers, and ridge stack, above large twelve-pane sashes in plain reveals, arm of `L', with two dormers, above flat roofed extension with small oculus and inserted light at mezzanine level, with blind light flanked by twelve-pane, and smaller margin pane sash, over colonnade to square piers at ground floor. Wing has deep end stack and ridge stack. Attached to outer end, at lower level, later C18 double hipped range with stack. Main range attached by high boundary wall swept to corner of Widcombe Cottage, has ashlar front, coursed rubble outer gable end, and slate roof. North front has two twelve-pane sashes at each floor, and stone eaves mould. Street gable end has two-stage ashlar stack, and extended left to hipped end, with fielded six-panel door in pilasters with cornice. To right wall ramped down to short horizontal section terminating in pair of square gatepiers with plank gates. INTERIOR: Recorded by Bath Preservation Trust 1989. The hall has the original panelling, Queen Anne in style which may well be earlier than the current house. with a white marble diamond patterned floor, two arched sash windows either side of front door. Wooden dog-leg staircase, three balusters per tread, wooden balusters carved and twisted. Passage to kitchen extended width-wise in 1996 to create an indoor garden on the courtyard side. Fine grey marble fireplace in the drawing room, vine decoration with central reclining figure with goats. Dining room mantlepiece and surround replaced with black marbled one with white streaks in 1996. Library floor tiled in leather by previous owners, who also lined the walls with copper, now overlaid with plasterboard. Original marble grey and white chimney piece in the library. Half landing on first floor has oval ceiling with plaster vine leaves and central ceiling rose, panelled walls painted above the dado, stained and varnished. The floor has a lozenge shaped pattern inlaid in the wood. Vaulted ceiling on panelled main landing and passage, Venetian window with wide mullions to two outer windows partially concealed. The upstairs drawing room, previously a bedroom until 1996. The fireplace was re-installed and two simulated marble pillars erected either side of the bay window, the small side window having been blocked up from inside. The former dressing room and bathroom have been dismantled and now form a single room. The bedroom to the left hand side of the landing has an oval window over the door. There are painted wooden panelled walls and a grey and white marble fireplace. There is a similar fireplace in the adjoining bathroom. The basement below the drawing room is now a billiard room and the former tongue and grooved panelling has been removed. Though most of the fittings remain, the house was substantially redecorated by the new owners in 1996-1997¿s. All the brass trimlocks and filigree finger plates were replaced with plain brass door knobs. A geometrical pattern on the half landing echoes the sun motif in the forecourt. HISTORY: Very grand house in baroque manner, set at bottom of grand sweep and included as part of landscape view when Prior Park (qv) was developed few years later. There was an earlier house on the site when Scarborough Chapman inherited the house circa 1680 and added the mill ground and mill orchards. It is generally thought now that Chapman built the basic house between 1680-90 and that Richard Jones provided a design for the front of the 1725-26 alterations, and executed the work. His daughter married Philip Bennet in 1702 and their son, Philip Bennet II rebuilt the house between 1726 ¿ 30. It is possible that the house was remodelling of the earlier one, rather than being built from scratch. An eight-pointed sun design stretching across the forecourt of the house, with the centre directly in front of the main door. The logo is thought to be too rustic for the C18 Palladian mansion and may have graced the earlier house. The Sun was a symbol of Scarborough¿s father Henry who¿s principal inn was `The Sonne¿ SOURCES: (Walter Ison: The Georgian Buildings of Bath: London: 1948-: 123; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 125; The Bath Chronicle: Images of Bath: Derby: 1994;The Survey of Bath & District No. 4:22; Mowbray Green: The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath:40; Pevsner architectural Guides: Forsyth M: Bath: 2003: 219-220.

Listing NGR: ST7593863887

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