Guyers House, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 (Grade II)

CORSHAM UPPER PICKWICK ST 87 SE 1/376 Guyers House II

House, later C17, altered in C19 with early C19 front range, rubble stone to rear, ashlar to front, slate roofs. Front range is 2- storey, 3-window with projecting centre, raised band, moulded cornice and parapet. Central arched doorway in Roman Doric columned porch. Late C19 addition to right with 2-storey canted bay. Original building survives to rear with roof altered in C19. Three-storey north front, 4 upper 4-pane windows in ovolo-moulded surrounds with hoodmoulds, dripcourse over first floor stepped up over right end single light, 6 irregularly spaced 2-light windows, all ovolo-moulded. Ground floor has dripcourse stepped over single light as above, but other mullion windows replaced by one 24-pane window, and one 12-pane to left of door, pair of 12-pane windows to right. Plank door in moulded surround with hood on brackets. Lean-to on north-west angle linking to single storey outbuilding, ‘The Cottage’. Attached at east end is wing, running north, of 2 parallel ranges, apparently a C17 ‘L’-plan house with paired barn ranges to north. West front has half-hipped cross-wing in angle, ovolo-moulded windows and dripcourses, irregular spacing, and then cart-entry with 6-pane window over and roof hipped to south and continued to north to hipped north gable. Rear parallel range has half-hipped roof, timber lintel to cart entry and 2 dormer gables with ovolo-moulded windows and outside stack to house range at left end. South end wall has upper 3-light window and hood, lower C20 mullion-and-transom window. House was part of a holding belonging to Snelling family in C16, sold 1678 to E. Bayley who may have rebuilt it, and later owned by Bennett and Dickinson families. Late C17 illustration on estate map shows north front broadly similar but with 4 dormer gables to second floor. (il. Brakspear, Corsham n.d. 26; reprint Wilts.Arch.Mag.43 511-39)