Description

ST03NE NETTLECOMBE CP

5/33 Leonard Wills Field Centre
(formerly listed as Nettlecombe
Court)

22.5.69

GV I

Shown on OS map as Nettlecombe Court (school). Manor house, now field studies centre. Late medieval hall, cross passage
and wing, now kitchens and pantry, 1599 entrance front, porch, great hall and parlour, circa 1641 addition to rear of
great hall, 1703-7 South West front extended and staircase added in angle, plasterwork on stair 1753, South West wing
decorated 1787-8, house stuccoed and North East service range added early C19, stucco removed mid C20. Squared and
coursed red sandstone, moulded plinth, coped parapets, finials, slate roofs, hipped right. Plan: hall and screens
passage, to right "L"-shaped block of earlier house with later wing forming service, courtyard, left of hall South West
wing, the garden front, staircase in angle. 2 and 3 storeys, 2:1:2:1:2:2 bays; 3 storey gabled porch fith bay right, 3
and a half storey left gable end 2 bays, openings blocked, first floor 3-light ovolo-moulded mullions, except 4 bays
right, all 12 pane sash windows, third bay left under stone relieving arch 3 x 5 pane mullioned transomed oriel window
two hall windows right 3 x 3 light, also under relieving arches, Tudor arch opening to porch set in square hood mould,
date 1599 in spandrel. Left return, garden front brick faced, 2 storeys, central attic gabled window, 9 bays, C20 4
pane sash windows, central pedimented Ionic porch. Kitchen courtyard has late C17 leaded cruciform windows and reset
moulded medieval doorcases in North East wing. Interior: fine strapwork moulded plaster ceiling with pendents in Great
Hall, plaster work overmantel, early C18 bolection moulded panelling, decorated organ in gallery of 1666 by John
Loosemore, repaired and enlarged C19; stair with turned balusters, inlaid landing floors, and delicate rococo
plasterwork; heavy plasterwork decoration in small dining parlour behind great hall, dated 1641, similar in room above;
circa 1700 plasterwork in office, similar in room above; Adam style decoration in South West wing under direction of
Samuel Heal, ceiling and marble fireplace in drawing room, Ionic screen and plasterwork cornice to dining room. The
house became a boys' preparatory school in 1963 and the Leonard Wills Field Centre in 1967. A fine collection of
interiors, notable for having good examples of plasterwork for 5 different periods, only C19 examples are absent.
(Photograph in NMR, VCH Somerset, vol 5 forthcoming; Bush and Corbett, Nettlecombe Court, Field studies 4, 1970;
Country Life, I February 1908).

Listing NGR: ST0564637755

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Nettlecombe Court at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7000540

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

• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record