Tuesday 7 April 2015

Bath House, Corsham Court

The Gothic Bath House at Corsham Court was built by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown  is the only one of the three garden buildings which he designed at Corsham that still stands. It was later remodelled and further Gothicised by John Nash between 1797 and 1802. The ogee shaped arches, the windows, Gothic niches and the roof pinnacles all survive from Brown's original pavillion.


The Bath House was intended to provide an invigorating cold dip. The cold bath is sunk into an arcaded ground floor and a flight of steps leads to a dressing room above.The last member of the Methuen family to use it regularly was the Field-Marshal Lord Methuen (1846-1932).


In the Bath House a door leads into a narrow tunnel with stucco walls encrusted with fir cones, hazel twigs and the remains of moss. This leads into the Bradford Porch, a late-Medieval doorway with a fan-vaulted ceiling that was erected here as a summerhouse by the 4th Lord Methuen in 1968 having been brought from The Priory at Bradford-on-Avon, formerly a Methuen property. The major part of the Priory was demolished in 1936.


The major part of the Priory was demolished in 1936.


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