Burton Pynsent House is a historic country-house in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

Curry Rivel Curry Rivel is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated west of Somerton and east of Taunton in the South Somerset district. The parish has a population of 2,148. The parish includes the hamlet of Burton Pynsent. History The ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, England. It is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The house was built in stages between 1565 and 1765, when it was bequeathed to

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, (15 November 170811 May 1778) was a British statesman of the Whig group who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him Chatham or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish ...

Sir William Pynsent, 2nd Baronet Sir William Pynsent, 2nd Baronet (c. 1679–1765) was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1722. He is commemorated by a tall monument at Curry Rivel, Somerset erected by William Pitt the Elder, to whom h ...

, who did not want the house to go to

Lord North Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...

. Pitt had an additional wing built to a design by

Lancelot Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English lan ...

, and the subsequent owner demolished everything but this wing in 1805. The house was extended around this wing in the 20th century, overlooking the of formal gardens and parkland. To the northwest of the house is Burton Pynsent Monument, a column with an urn finial, built to commemorate Pynsent's generosity to Pitt.

History

The house at Burton Pynsent was built section by section over the period of many years. Construction was commenced by Marmaduke Jennings in approximately 1565 and was continued by the Jennings family throughout the 17th century. The house passed to William Pynsent, who married Mary Star, the widowed daughter of Thomas Jennings. Pynsent bequeathed the house to his political idol,

, despite never meeting him. His intention was to disinherit

, a relative of his wife, who had supported a tax on Somerset cider which Pynsent disagreed with, and which Pitt had blocked. Pynsent died in 1765 and his relatives were unhappy at being left just 1,000 guineas each, and so unsuccessfully contested the will over the following six years. Pitt immediately commissioned

to design a monument in memory of Pynsent's generosity, built by Philip Pear at a cost of £2,000 (). Brown also advised on the landscaping of the parkland and possibly designed the wing that Pitt built on the eastern end of the house. Despite complaints from the Pynsent family, Pitt started landscaping the gardens and other works in 1766. Pitt sold part of the estate to help repurchase his seat at Hayes Place, Kent, but still resided at Burton Pynsent for periods until his death in 1778. His widow remained at the estate until her death in 1803. The estate was split up and sold in 1805, to pay for John Pitt's gambling debts, with the house and park being purchased for £8,810 (). The new owner, Colonel Pinney, demolished the majority of the house - keeping the 18th century wing. The house passed through a number of hands during the 19th century, before being purchased by a relation of

Harold Peto Harold Ainsworth Peto FRIBA (11 July 1854 – 16 April 1933) was a British architect, landscape architect and garden designer, who worked in Britain and in Provence, France. Among his best-known gardens are Iford Manor, Wiltshire; Buscot P ...

, Mrs Crossley. The house remained in the hands of the Crossley family for the majority of the 20th century. The grounds were laid out in the mid 18th century by Pitt and Lancelot Brown; and they include early-20th-century formal gardens designed by Peto. The formal gardens are listed, Grade II, on the

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England The Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by Historic England ...

House

The house is built on a flat terrace near the south west of corner of the estate. The two storey building is constructed of brick in a classical style, dressed with

ham stone Hamstone is the name given to a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material w ...

features and a hipped tile roof. The garden frontage of the house is symmetrical with a

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

at the centre above a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

. It includes a porched door with some semi-circular stone steps toward the garden. The entrance facade is asymmetrical, with a tall arcaded entrance projecting out from the house on the south-west corner. The western facade of the house was altered during the 20th century to compensate for the demolition of large parts of the house in 1805. The house is now largely built around the wing that had been built for William Pitt. Pitt's wing contained a library for himself and a 'bird room' for his wife, away from their children's rooms. The house was designated Grade II*

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

status on 1 June 1984. In 2001 the house was put up for rent for £36,000 (), described as having seven bedrooms, four bathrooms and half a dozen reception rooms and offices.

Grounds

Entrance gateway, Burton Pynsent (geograph 3664429)

Burton Pynsent House is set in , comprising of formal gardens and pleasure grounds, the remaining area is parkland. It is bounded to the north by the Burton Dairy Farm and to the south by the A378. The parkland and planted woods merge into two other woods at the boundaries, Swell Wood at the south-west and Stoneley Copse in the north-east. The entrance to Burton Pynsent House is between a pair of 18th century brick square brick columns, decorated with ham stone, flanked by walls. The drive is long, with a spur off leading to the house's home farm and

kitchen garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

. The house's formal gardens are found to the south, west and east of the house, with informal

pleasure ground In English gardening history, the pleasure ground or pleasure garden was the parts of a large garden designed for the use of the owners, as opposed to the kitchen garden and the wider park. It normally included flower gardens, typically dir ...

s to the north-west.

Gardens

The entrance to the house faces an area of lawn and ornamental shrubbery. To the south east is a pathway to a pergola, in front of a

terrace garden In gardening, a terrace is an element where a raised flat paved or gravelled section overlooks a prospect. A raised terrace keeps a house dry and provides a transition between the hardscape and the softscape. History ;Persia Since a level si ...

, with a paved walkway through

topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...

. The walkway leads to a flower garden and beyond to a lawn surrounded by yew hedges with an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

at one end. At the other end of the pergola is a walkway flanked by lime trees. To the east of the house there is a further terrace, surrounded by

balustrades A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

with views towards the Pynsent Column. There are flagstone walkways leading to panels of lawn, interspaced with topiary spheres. The walkway leads to an area of ornamental shrubs and a

woodland garden A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shru ...

Monument

Towards the east and north-east of the house there is parkland, the majority of which has been turned over to agricultural use, grazing to the north-east and planting to the east. The Pynsent Column (also known as the Curry Rivel Column, Burton Pynsent Monument, Pynsent Steeple or Cider Monument) sits to the north east of the house, at the top of Troy Hill. It was designed in the 18th century by Capability Brown for William Pitt. The column is built of

blue lias The Blue Lias is a geological formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassi ...

and is of Roman

Doric style The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

, with a square base and a square podium. At the top of the column is a

with an urn finial. The monument was restored in the 1990s by the John Paul Getty Trust and English Heritage.

References

{{reflist Grade II* listed buildings in South Somerset Houses completed in 1756 Country houses in Somerset Grade II* listed houses in Somerset Grade II listed parks and gardens in Somerset Gardens in Somerset Hamstone buildings