Philipps House

Coordinates: 51°05′06″N 1°59′02″W / 51.085°N 1.984°W

Philipps House

Philipps House (until 1916 Dinton House[1]) is an early nineteenth-century Neo-Grecian country house at Dinton, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. The house was designed by Jeffry Wyatt, later Sir Jeffry Wyatville for William Wyndham (1769-1841), and was built between 1814 and 1817 on the site of an earlier, demolished seventeenth-century house, Dinton House, which had been the Wyndham family home since 1689. The new house was also called Dinton House, and was known as this until 1917 when foreclosure proceedings were brought against Dinton House and its estate.

The estate was bought by Bertram Erasmus Philipps (1870-1947), a descendant of the Philipps baronets of Picton Castle (1621 creation),[2] who renamed the house after himself. He was High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1923.[3][4] Philipps and his wife, who had no children, annually hosted the pupils from the village school for a tea party at Philipps House with sports and fireworks.[5]

In 1936, Philipps leased the house to the YWCA as a retreat, and they remained there until 1995. Philipps moved to nearby Hyde's House, a former rectory which he had bought in 1924 and where he lived until his death.[6][7][8] During World War II, the park in front of Philipps house was requisitioned for use by the United States Army Air Force, who erected a number of Nissen huts there. In 1943 Philipps gave the house and 250 acres (1.0 km2) of parkland, along with Hyde's House as well as a number of paintings owned by the Wyndham and Philipps families, to the National Trust.[9][10]

Philipps House

The house is built of Chilmark stone, a local building stone also used for Salisbury Cathedral, and Wyatt is believed to have based his design on Pythouse, some seven miles (11 km) away at Newtown, near Tisbury. The house is two-storied with symmetrically set chimney stacks and a central lantern. The main (south) front has nine bays with an Ionic portico. The rooms are planned around a spacious square hall with an imperial staircase to the first floor. The house is one of the first in England to have a central heating system installed. This was achieved by pumping hot air from a boiler in the basement into the stairwell.[11] Now open to the public, the house contains an impressive collection of Regency furniture and furnishings. The house is Grade II* listed.

After the YWCA left in 1995, the National Trust did a thorough refurbishing of the house, which is leased to a tenant family. The house is, at present, closed to the public. The parkland that surrounds the house is still known as Dinton Park, and it also has been restored.

References

  1. ↑ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 15th Edition, ed. Pirie-Gordon, H., London, 1937, p.2512, Dinton House sold by Wyndham family in 1916
  2. ↑ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles. Armorial Families, p. 787. Edinburgh: Grange Publishing Works, 1895. Bertram was the 5th son of the Reverend Sir James Erasmus Philipps, 12th baronet, of Picton Castle, Vicar of Warminster, Wilshire. His brothers were John Philipps, 1st Viscount St Davids; Owen Philipps, 1st Baron Kylsant; Major-General Sir Ivor Philipps; and Laurence Philipps, 1st Baron Milford; several of them were Members of Parliament and directors or stockholders in the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and other shipping companies.
  3. ↑ "Philipps House," BBC - Your Paintings, accessed 22 June 2013.
  4. ↑ "Philipps House (Dinton House)," The DiCamillo Companion, accessed 22 June 2013.
  5. ↑ "Church School, Dinton". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
  6. ↑ "Dinton - Andrews Newspaper Index Cards, 1790-1976," Wiltshire OPC, 2011, accessed 22 June 2013
  7. ↑ "Dinton Recreation Ground," South Wilshire Strategic Alliance, accessed 22 June 2013
  8. ↑ Philipps died intestate on 10 February 1947 at Menton, France, where he was staying with his wife, Florence, who died a week earlier on February 4. Philipps's brother Laurence, Baron Milford, was subsequently appointed his personal representative for the probate of his estate.
  9. ↑ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (320735)". Images of England. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  10. ↑ http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-philippshouse_dintonpark
  11. ↑ 'Dinton', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 8: Warminster, Westbury and Whorwellsdown Hundreds (1965), pp. 25-34, accessed 28 September 2013.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Philipps House.

Bibliography