Farleigh House
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| Farleigh House | |
| Building information | |
|---|---|
| Town | Farleigh Hungerford |
| Country | England |
| Client | Joseph Houlton |
| Completion date | 1820 |
| Cost | £40,000 |
| Style | Gothic Revival |
Farleigh House is a large country house in the English county of Somerset that was formerly the centre of the Farleigh Hungerford estate.
Contents |
[edit] Houlton family
The house has sometimes been called Farleigh New Castle. Indeed, it was largely built with stone taken from the ruins of the mediaeval Castle itself. A Trowbridge clothier, Joseph Houlton, bought the Farleigh estate in 1702. His son, Joseph Houlton, Junior, lived at the Home Farm, an old gabled house, which he completely rebuilt and turned into Farleigh House, a modest gentleman's residence complete with a 120-acre deer park. In 1806, Colonel John Houlton inherited the estate. He enlarged and altered the house in the fashionable Gothic Revival style spending £40,000 - several million in today‘s values - on extensions to the main house, a chapel, hot houses, conservatories, stables and six lodges. Most of the present house dates from that period. One of the lodges was called the Castle Lodge and is now the Bath Lodge Hotel.
The Houlton family remained at Farleigh Hungerford until 1899, when Sir Edward Houlton died with no male heir.
[edit] Later owners
The estate was sold in 1906 to Lord Cairns and later passed through several hands. In the 1950s and 1960s, Farleigh House and its estate were owned by the Hely-Hutchinson family, a cadet branch of the Hely-Hutchinsons, Earls of Donoughmore.
[edit] Ravenscroft School
In 1970, the main house and a number of cottages were sold to Mr John F. R. Gillam, the headmaster and owner of Ravenscroft School, which had previously been based in nearby Beckington Castle. In about 1980, John Gillam also bought much of the Farleigh Hungerford estate. In 1998, Ravenscroft School closed and the house became Farleigh College, a new special school, but that subsequently moved to new premises near Mells. John Gillam and his family continued to own the house until it was sold to an optical company called Inspecs to serve as the firm's headquarters.
Farleigh House is a Grade II listed building.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ Farleigh Castle. Images of England. Retrieved on 2006-12-16.
