Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17544288

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.

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