Sham Ruin, Corsham Court

Behind the Elizabethan stables of Corsham Court is an extraordinary folly, the monumental Sham Ruin built by John Nash c1797.

The towering edifice, about 60' high and 100' long, was intended to convey an ancient ecclesiastical impression

It  may have been built with stone recycled from Chippenham Priory, including some of the window tracery and also some of the material from Capability Brown's Bath House at Corsham Court. That there are more windows on the north side shows that it was primarily intended to be seen from the big house, rather than from the town.

Small rooms in the bottom of the wall may have been used for grand accommodation for poultry.

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.