Description

SO 50 NE NEWLAND CLEARWELL

8/74 Clearwell Castle

15.3.83
II*

Country house. Built 1727 by Roger Morris for Thomas Wyndham in
Gothick style. Built of Forest stone which has survived a fire in
1929 and a period of ruin when the floors and roof were removed in
1948. The entrance front has a 2 storey central portion flanked
by symmetrical 3 storey towers, all with embattlements alternately
carved with the Wyndham lion. The towers have diagonal buttresses
in the 2 lower stages. The windows have stone mullions and
transoms, with pointed arched heads on the ground floor and
elsewhere. The central doorway which opens directly into the
great hall is approached up a double flight of steps with turned
balusters, and has flanking clustered colonnettes. Here and all
along the basement are attractive round windows. The house is
built on a sloping site and the side elevations are irregular
possibly owing to C19 additions in the same style. The library
has a large bow window on the south which appears at one time to
have been used as a chapel. At the opposite end leading into the
hall, there are tall Ionic columnns in antis and this room like
many others has a typical early C18 cornice, and a splendid stone
fireplace with carved baroque overmantel. Some original
fireplaces survive, the best is in the hall with carved hunting
equipment in the frieze. The house was restored after the fire,
and many of the ceilings are facsimile rather than original; there
does not seems to have been any Gothic decoration inside, and the
surviving fireplaces are more typical of the baroque phase of the
early C18.

Listing NGR: SO5701207746

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Clearwell Castle at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5130970

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

• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)