Grittleton House

History

On this site, across the road from St Mary's Church, stood a three-bay Jacobean manor house, dating from 1660. The estate was bought in 1828 by Joseph Neeld, a London lawyer who had inherited a substantial sum, and Grittleton became his country seat.

In the first phase of work for Neeld, c. 1832-40 to designs of James Thomson, the earlier house was partly refaced and added to. A major extension of 1852-6 saw the demolition of the old house. Designs for this phase were at first again by Thomson, who was replaced by Henry Clutton in 1853; however, Thomson appears to have completed the house in 1854-6. Pevsner wrote of the house: "It is really a monstrosity. It has Jacobean gables and a Jacobean central tower, but windows of a long, thin, Veneto-Byzantine variery, and odd oriels in unexpected places".

After Joseph Neeld's death in 1856 the estate was inherited by his brother John.

Associated buildings

Thomson designed an extensive complex of stables, coach houses and related facilities, built to the south of the house c. 1835. Nearby improvements to the estate included the destruction of the hamlet of Upper Foscote, except for one 17th-century house.

Thomson also designed Fosse Lodge, in the north of the estate on the Fosse Way, with a tall, octagonal tower (1835); and Malmesbury Lodge in Grittleton village (c. 1840), its octagonal spirelet with bell-stage noted as "remarkable" in the building's National Heritage List entry. Stable Lodge, at the entrance to the stables on the Yatton Keynell road, and Woodman's Lodge, in the southeast, are of similar date. West Lodge, at the principal western entrance to Grittleton House, was built in 1854-5 to designs by Clutton, based on the plan of Malmesbury Lodge.

School

The house was the home of Grittleton House School between 1951 and 2016. This was a small, family-run independent co-educational school and children's daycare provider. The school closed in July 2016; in its final year it had around 150 pupils and toddlers aged 2-16.

Grittleton House was non-selective and therefore classes were made up of pupils with a wide range of abilities. It offered pupils small classes and claimed to teach traditional family values, courtesy, consideration for others, and responsibility for oneself.

Notable former pupils include: