The House
In the days when the Eyles family owned the House the attics had one main use, to provide a place to sleep for the servants. Each night the butler would bring a ladder to the attic entrance so that the servants could go up to their room to sleep. He would then remove it until the following morning when again he would bring the ladder and allow the servants to get down.
The house consisted of a dining hall, library, study, drawing room, servants quarters, morning room, bedrooms, bathroom and conservatory. Also there were extensive gardens and shrubberies.
The house was considerably altered and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries for use as part of a School. The original building dating mainly from 1773 is of Bath Stone Ashlar and consists of a two-story central block flanked by much lower service wings. The wings have been considerably altered but retain a few original round-headed openings on the ground floor with some oval windows above.
Southbroom House is a Grade II listed building, as maintained by English Heritage, the UK government body responsible for the historic environment in England.
Read more about this topic: Southbroom House
Famous quotes containing the word house:
“But the house of the prudent countryman will be, of course, a place of honest manners; and Demeter Thesmophoros is the guardian of married life, the deity of the discretion of wives. She is therefore the founder of civilised order.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)