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Druce’s Hill House

Druce’s Hill, 22 Church Street, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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Druce's Hill House, Bradford on Avon

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The ashlar façade of Druce’s Hill House is of three storeys and basement and five bays, of which the central one is emphasised on each floor, in a style that can be seen in Bristol, Bath and Trowbridge also; Westbury House is the other example in Bradford. On the ground floor the entrance is surrounded in a sort of tuscan doric style with a metope frieze; the first floor window, with bolection moulding frame, is in corinthian style with fluted pilasters; the top floor feature is shorter with panelled pilasters. At the top is a parapet of panels and balustrades. On the right of the main front is an extension of two bays with windows in the same style as the main house, under a stone-tile roof. The rear has cross mullion and transom windows that may date from the earlier house. A detached building at the rear that was shown on the 1837 map by George Ashmead may have been a workshop and store that was used in the woollen cloth trade.

All the façade seems to be just a front that was added to existing buildings, like the rank of gabled houses to its left, in order to keep up with the fashion for neo-classical architecture. It was done in about 1738-40 for Anthony Druce, a Quaker clothier who became bankrupt not long afterwards. It passed into the hands of the Bailward family, who had other property in Bradford and lived at Frankleigh on the northern outskirts. In 1841 it was occupied by surgeon James Pearce, father of the geologist Joseph Chaning Pearce, on a lease from General Henry Shrapnel, but he moved to Grosvenor in Bath a few years later.

Old photographs show that the sash windows had lost their glazing bars, but these had been replaced as part of a major restoration before 1943. Some more work was carried out by the architect Oswald Brakspear in 1961.  The house has been empty for several years, but there are plans for restoring some stonework and other features.