Listed Building: Wicken Park (1041618)

Country house, now school. Early C18 with possible C16 origins. Wings added and altered by Thomas Prowse for himself. Extra storey added and other alterations C19. Limestone ashlar, hipped slate roof, brick internal stacks. 3 storeys with 2-storey wings, 10-window range to north. Double-depth plan. North, present entrance front has C19 porch to left of centre and sash windows with flat-arched heads. 3 bays either side of 2-bay centre break forward slightly. 2-storey wings have canted projections and 3 12-pane sashes to ground and 1st floors with flat arched heads. Plinth and 1st floor storey band. 9-window garden front to south. Wings have 2 windows to this side to ground and 1st floor. All sash windows with flat-arched heads. West side elevation of 3 bays, that to centre breaking forward slightly. C19 office wing to east. Interior has 2-storey staircase hall with re-set mid C18 staircase rising to gallery-landing with slim turned balusters and carved tread ends. Plaster modillion cornice. Dentil and guilloche pattern plaster cornices to other rooms in west wing, another with reeded plaster cornice and moulded 6-panel door. Fielded panelling to rooms either end of south front one with bolection-moulded fireplace, the other with blocked corner fireplace. Wicken Park was formerly one of the lodges of the Whittlewood Forest, sold 1716 to Charles Hosier who enlarged it. The house came into the Prowse family through the marriage of Thomas Prowse of Axbridge, Somerset, to Elizabeth Sharp, eldest daughter of the Hosiers only child Anna Maria. Their descendants lived there until 1860 when it was sold to Colonel the Hon. George Sholto Douglas-Pennent, later Baron Penrhyn, who enlarged the house and restored and enlarged the Church (q.v.) in memory of his first wife who died 1869. The Penrhyn family lived at Wicken Park until 1944 when the estate was sold. (Buildings of England: Northamptonshire; 1973, p462; C.S. Dickin Moore: Wicken Church, 1967; H. Colvin: A Dictionary of British Architects: 1978, p667)

Record last edited

Apr 29 2022 12:28PM