Turleigh Manor, Winsley, Wiltshire, BA15 (Grade II*)

ST 86 SW WINSLEY TURLEIGH

4/301 Turleigh Manor

13.11.62

GV II*

House, late C17 to early C18, ashlar, with hipped stone slate roof and two square corniced ashlar stacks. Two storeys and attic, square plan with formal matching early C18 style fronts to south and east and late C17 style front to west. South and east fronts have modillion cornice and parapet, cornice with heavy pulvinated frieze over ground floor and moulded plinth. Twelve-pane sashes in moulded architraves with moulded sills, the heads of the ground floor windows breaking into the base of the moulded cornice above. Seven-window south front with centre windows closely spaced and panelled double doors in open-pedimented bolection moulded surround with urn in pediment. East front has similar four-window range and two segmental-headed small-paned dormers. Some ground floor windows on both fronts have been lowered. West front is of squared rubble with moulded dripcourse and eaves cornice, the eaves cornice continuing the bottom moulding of the main cornice of south front. Five-window range of chamfered recessed 2-light mullion-and-transom windows and centre door in bolection surround. l½ storey kitchen attached at north west angle. North front is irregular but with cornice carried round. Two ground floor C17 ovolo-moulded 2-light mullion windows and a large tripartite stairlight. A stone-fronted flat dormer has recessed chamfered 2-light mullion window. Interior: altered in C20 but said to have fine twisted baluster staircase and panelled rooms. Part of the pre-Reformation Bradford parsonage lands held by the Dean and Chapter of Bristol 1542-1861. Recorded as held by Barnes family c1548-1615, by the Dicke family, clothiers, 1615-70, J. Curll, clothier 1670-1707, John Daw 1707-27, John Thresher, clothier, 1727 and by descent to Sir Bourchier Wrey c1760, and by Ann Atwood 1811. During most of the C18 the house was tenanted, from 1733-47 by J. Baskerville, clothier, and was described in 1747 as ‘a very compleat well built house, with all necessary and convenient out-houses, dye-house, wool-lofts….’. From 1775 the tenant was Richard Atwood, of the noted Bath family of builders and architects. He is recorded as a close friend of the statesman Edmund Burke who is said to have visited. The Rev W. Romaine is said to have written his ‘Walk and Triumph of Faith’ here 1771. (Information R. and B. Harvey; R.E.M. Peach Rambles about Bath 1876 408; N. Pevsner Wiltshire 1975 540)