Speedwell Castle is a mid-18th-century house at the centre of
Brewood,
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
, between
Wolverhampton and
Stafford
Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...
. Described by
Pevsner as a "peach" and a "delectable folly", it stands beside the village market place, at the head of a
T-junction on Bargate Street, facing onto Stafford Street.
The house is an interesting combination of "
Gothick" and
Classical architecture: the symmetrical brick façade has two canted
bays
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...
, each of three storeys, either side of a pillared entrance with
ogee portico and octagonal-panelled door. There are five windows around each bay on each floor, and a single window on the two floors above the entrance, with decorative plasterwork arranged in tiers of round-headed arches with keystones and ogee arches rising to pinnacles surmounted by acorns. The glazing is arranged in a delicate tracery, originally of hexagons (although the glazing bars are not original on the ground and first floors). The façade is finished by a
modillion cornice and parapet, concealing a hipped slate roof with brick chimney stacks. The interior includes one surviving decorative plaster ceiling and a
Chinese Chippendale
Thomas Chippendale (1718–1779) was a cabinet-maker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs in a trade catalogue titled ''The Gentleman and Cab ...
staircase with fretted balustrade. The house became a grade II
listed building in 1953.
The designer is unknown but some sources suggest
Thomas Farnolls Pritchard, who worked nearby in
Shropshire. The house has some similarities with
Sandhurst House Sandhurst often refers to:
* Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, near the town of Sandhurst in Berkshire, England
* Royal Military College, Sandhurst, its predecessor (before 1947)
Sandhurst may also refer to:
Places
* Sandhurst, Berkshire, Englan ...
in
Stourbridge, and
Shenstone Hall near
Lichfield. The design may have been inspired by the books published in the 1740s by
Batty Langley, who attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions.
Speedwell Castle was reputedly built by a local apothecary William Rock, using the winnings from betting on the
Duke of Bolton's racehorse, Speedwell. (An alternate story is that the builder owned an unsuccessful racehorse, and said that he would build a castle to celebrate if it ever won). After a period as the home of the classics master at
Brewood Grammar School in the second half of the 19th century, it became a reading room in the late 19th century. It was then used as shops and storage until the 1930s, when it was converted to residential flats.
References
The 'delectable folly' that is Brewood's Speedwell Castle Birmingham Post, 2 April 2010
Speedwell Castle, Brewood and Coven British Listed Buildings
*
Staffordshire Nikolaus Pevsner, p.78
Brewood: Introduction, manors and agriculture A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 5: East Cuttlestone hundred (1959), pp. 18-40.
External links
* Views of Speedwell Castle, Brewood, Staffordshire Past-Track:
*
c.1970-1989*
1974*
c.1905-1915*
c.1896-1910
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Houses completed in the 18th century
Gothic Revival architecture in Staffordshire