Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Woodchester Mansion

Woodchester Mansion, Woodchester Park, Nympsfield, Stonehouse, GL10 3TS

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1340703
Date first listed:: 27-Jun-1960
List Entry Name:: Woodchester Mansion
Statutory Address:: Woodchester Mansion, Woodchester Park, Nympsfield, Stonehouse, GL10 3TS

User submitted image — Uploaded by Historic England Archive This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2004-05-14
Reference:: IOE01/08851/21
Rights:: © Mr Derrick Whitmore. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1340703
Date first listed:: 27-Jun-1960
List Entry Name:: Woodchester Mansion
Statutory Address 1:: Woodchester Mansion, Woodchester Park, Nympsfield, Stonehouse, GL10 3TS

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Woodchester Mansion, Woodchester Park, Nympsfield, Stonehouse, GL10 3TS

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Gloucestershire
District:: Stroud (District Authority)
Parish:: Woodchester
National Grid Reference:: SO 80902 01384

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 18/08/2020

SO 80 SW 4/265

WOODCHESTER WOODCHESTER PARK Woodchester Mansion

(Formerly listed as The Mansion)

28.6.60

I Large country house. c1854-1868 by Benjamin Bucknall for William Leigh. Ashlar limestone; ashlar chimneys; stone slate roof. High Victorian Gothic style. Built around small courtyard. Main two storey with attic L-plan range to south; chapel to east; secondary range to west; and service range to north, built into hill side.

South front: three parapet gables above buttressed wall. Symmetrical eight-window fenestration, four-light wide mullioned and transomed to ground floor with shouldered arched lower and trefoil headed upper lights, three-light wide to upper floor with trefoil headed upper lights, paired cross windows in attic gables with quatrefoil vent over. Mullioned cellar windows. Continuous drip moulds above windows running over buttresses, alternating buttresses having realistically carved animal gargoyles receiving water from channel down coped top of buttress below stone gutters on carved stone brackets. Paired ridge-mounted chimneys with circular shafts.

East side: three main gable ends, central to chapel with simple fin-like buttresses and elaborate flowing tracery to five-light east window. Two three-light chapel windows on south side, single to north, with matching tracery. Gable end of main south range to left with large off-centre single-storey canted bay window having large mullioned and transomed window to each face; diagonal corner buttresses with attached shafts and winged animal gargoyles; trefoil-headed lancet-pierced parapet. Large pointed relieving arch above bay is echoed by drip mould. Fenestration otherwise mixed mullioned or transomed, upper having separate hoodmoulds. Gable end of service range to right with scattered mullioned casements, bold diagonal buttresses and ridge-mounted stone vents.

West side: very changeful, not contrived but resulting from large gable end of main range to right, buttressed return wing to centre and service range to left with projecting wing. Belfry tower set behind dominates this range, having tall coped hipped roof, carved cresting and iron weather vane; tall stone louvred belfry openings.

Courtyard: buttressed west end of chapel with spherical triangular window containing rose tracery; two two-light windows below with Decorated tracery. Central gabled projection to rear of main range with stepped trefoil headed stair lights; much leaded glazing installed. Various stone rainwater pipes, buttresses and stone-bracketed gutters.

Interior: fine tierceron chapel vault with individually carved flower bosses. Most of house interior is incomplete, arched stone fireplaces and doorways being installed. Main range has one room with completed stone vaulting, otherwise only springing in place. Round arched moulded rere-arches to main front windows. Simpler vaulting to staircase and corridors. Many other stone fittings including bath and tunnel vaulted shower with animal gargoyle water outlet.

Leigh bought Woodchester Park from Lord Ducie in 1845 demolishing the C18 mansion and starting this large house, designed by a young local architect. Bucknall was greatly influenced by Viollet-le-Duc from an early age, becoming his English translator, and this is his most thorough application of a rational approach to Gothic architecture. Never completed, the house is partially glazed and completely roofed. One of the most remarkable houses of its period and uniquely exhibiting its construction process. Also in the large landscaped park (possibly by Capability Brown) are a boat house (q.v.) and The Tower (q.v.).

(The NMR has an extensive set of photographs. M.Girouard, The Victorian Country House, 1979; D. Verey, article in Country Life, 6th February 1969, and Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds, 1979.)

Listing NGR: SO8090201384

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 132140
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Girouard, M, The Victorian Country House, (1971)
Verey, D , The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire 1 The Cotswolds, (1970)
'Country Life' in Country Life, (1969)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.