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Church House

Church Street, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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Church House, Bradford on Avon

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A Georgian House of fine ashlar, with Palladian-style façade featuring a neo-classical pediment and a so-called “Venetian” window (also known as a serliana, after the Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio).

It was part of the Rogers Manor estate (the “Priory”), which was purchased by the Methuen family in 1657. In about 1730 a house on this spot was rebuilt by Christopher Brewer, Attorney-at-Law, the present building. It was later the home and office of another lawyer, Daniel Clutterbuck, who died in 1769.

It was known as Church House by 1771, when the freehold was sold by Pawlett Wrighte, Lord of the Manor of Bradford, to Thomas Baskerville of Woolley.

From 1821, it was occupied by the Bradford branch of the bank of the Bath firm of Hobhouse, Phillot & Lowder, until 1841-2 when it failed. Later it was owned by the maltster Thomas Wheeler, who let the ground floor to the North Wilts Bank, until they built their own building next door (later Lloyds Bank). A bank vault has been discovered in the cellar. In the 1880s and 1890s it was occupied by surgeons R.W. Collett and William John Alexander Adye.

Like other large houses, it was requisitioned in the Second World War and was then converted into five flats to accommodate people displaced by the war.

During the 1980s part of the house was used as an art gallery and later it was the home of Lady Bremridge.

It was advertised for sale by Knight Frank for £1.75m in October 2015, when it was described as having five bedrooms, as well as another in an annexe at the rear; a lower ground floor has seven cellar rooms and has a separate entrance from Church Street.

Some alterations were made to designs by CaSA Architects.

It was advertised for sale again in September 2021 by Savills, at £2,250,000.

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