Description

BURFORD AND UPTON WITNEY STREET
AND SIGNET (South side)
SP2512 (Enlargement) The Great House
7/254
12.9.55

GV II*

Town mansion. First on Burgage Rent Roll in 1685. Ashlar with chamfered
quoins, hipped Cotswold stone roof. Subdued English Baroque style with
local characteristics. 2 storeys, built-up attic (ie 3 storeys) and
basement. 7 bays. Moulded plinth over basement, flat string to attic
windows; cornice and crenellated parapet with alternating vases and
flaming urn finials; central pediment on cornice with in tympanum a Tudor
rose with glazed centre. Large square plan. Crenellated end chimney
stacks with chamfered quoins (see also Kingham House, Kingham C.P. q.v).
Sash windows with single vertical glazing bars in moulded architrave with
moulded cills; on ground floor with alternating segmental and triangular
pediments over pulvinated frieze, the central window has garland drapery
to frieze and pediment supported on brackets off slender pilasters.
Alternating circular and octagonal attic windows below cornice in square
architraves with panelled spandrels. Bullseye openings to basement in
bolection architraves with panelled spandrels. Central C20 6-panel door
approached by 4 D-plan steps, architrave, pulvinated frieze and segmental
pediment, set slightly lower than cornice of ground floor windows. Lower
2-storey-and-basement wing to left, ashlar below coursed and dressed
rubble, strings of main part continues over ground and 1st floors with
pendant drips over windows, 2 to each floor with rebated chamfered mullion
windows of 3-lights, altered to sash on ground floor right, moulded
doorway to right with 6-panel door; plain 2-light opening to left. Gable
ends ashlar with crenellated parapet and pine-cone finials and chamfered
quoins; cornice interrupted by small corbels to heavy chimney with moulded
offset, chamfered quoins and crenellation; outer bullseye attic windows
with panelled spandrels,moulded architraves and flat linking cill string.
East return has rainwater head with initials "CxR" over "F" (?
Fettiplace) .
2 extensions to rear. To east with parallel ridge, 3 windows with
pulvinated friezes and a plain parapet, linked to house by 2-bay block of
c.1710-1720; blocked doorway in west gable with a double hollow chamfer
moulding, bracketed shell hood over with foliage face in central
ornamental bracket. The west extension gabled, 3 windows with rusticated
surrounds on 1st floor. Small parallel ridged kitchen block to East
probably of single storey and attic.
A fine and imposing burgage house of late C17 with characteristics of
competent Wren school masons, normally attributed to Christopher Kempster;
but equally possibly by someone like say William Byrd.
The similarity of chimneys to Kingham House about 7 miles North is
striking.

Listing NGR: SP2528212145

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17532702

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)