Description

COUNTISBURY WATERS MEET
SS 74 NW
3/38 Watersmeet House
-
- II
Hunting and fishing lodge, now shop and restaurant. Built c. 1832 for the Revd.
Walter Stevenson Halliday. Probably enlarged circa 1850. Uncoursed stone rubble
with large irregular quoins. Gable-ended slate roofs, pyramidal over octagon, with
wooden finial. Possibly formerly thatched.
Plan: L-plan facing south-west. Central elongated octagon projecting to front as
canted bay, with flanking wings, and rear wing with probably later L-shaped wing in
angle to north-west. Lean-to loggia, returning to sides. 2 storeys. A cottage
orne.
Exterior: plinth, and overhanging eaves with pierced barge boards.
South-west front: rendered ridge stack off-centre to right and rendered stack in
valley to right. 1:3:1 bays, the centre 3 windows in a 2-storey canted bay with a
steep hipped roof, first-floor 2-light small-paned wooden casements with margin
lights, stone flat ashes and small gables above. Ground-floor small-paned French
casements with margin lights and stone flat arches. Loggia with cobbled terrace,
rustic wooden posts with straight braces, and lean-to slate roof, glazed to centre.
Right-hand gable-end with 2-light wooden margin-light casement to each floor. Left-
hand gable-end with first-floor wooden casement of 2 Tudor-gothic lights with Y-
tracery and returned wooden hoodmould; small-paned half-glazed door beneath with 3
Tudor-Gothic lower panels, 3 Tudor Gothic upper lights, and boarded reveals.
Inscription above door: "The spot was made by nature for herself: /The travellers
know it not, and it will remain /Unknown to them; but it is beautiful: /And if a man
should plant his cottage near, /Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees, /And
blend its waters with his daily meal, /He would so love it, that in his death-hour
/Its image would survive among his thoughts." Rear wing with Gothic wooden casements
and external lateral stone stack. Probably later L-shaped range in angle at rear
with external stone end stack.
Interior: complete fixtures and fittings of 1832 in the ground-floor front rooms;
including moulded cornices and panelled shutters. Panelled doors (double to central
octagonal room) have reeded architraves with square pateral at corners. Fireplace
in octagonal room has reeded architrave with roundels at corners. Open-well
cantilevered wooden staircase in circa 1850 rear wing, consisting of open string
with cut brackets, turned balusters (2 per tread) and swept handrail, wreathed to
foot newel.
The Revd. W. S. Stevenson acquired the estate in 1829 and began his house,
Glenthorne (q.v) soon afterwards. Watersmeet House in known from estate documents
to have been occupied by 1832. He owned a copy of P.F. Robinson's Rural
Architecture; or a Series of Designs for Ornamental Cottages of 1832 (still in the
possesion of the Halliday family) and was much influenced by the designs which it
illustrates. A print of Glenthorne, as it was in the early C19, is kept at
Watersmeet House at the time of the survey (July 1987).
Sources: H Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (1978),
p.700; Burke's Landed Gentry, 18th Ed. Vol.3 (1972), p.419. Much information
supplied by Mr A J B Halliday and Mr H Mellor of the National Trust.

Listing NGR: SS7444248648

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Watersmeet House at Wikipedia
• Watersmeet House official website
• Wikidata Q7974449

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

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)