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Summary

Grade II listed 18th and 19th century building, perhaps with earlier origins; on high ground within an earthwork

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1220635: SPEEN HOUSE

Other Statuses and Cross-References

• National Monuments Record No.: SU 46 NE 286
  SU 459 678
• Old Listed Building Ref (pre 1984) (II): ø Map No 26 4/131 Speen House Stable blocks at Speen House
  Late C.18, three storeys, stucco carried up to parapet, hipped old tile roof. N. front of 3 widely spaced bays with half glazed central door in plain glazed wood porch. 2 lower bays to R.H. continued with 3 further lower bays. Long stable wing, brick, old tile roof to R.H. and similar stable block further to R.H. E. front has angular bay the whole height. S. front - segmental central bow the whole height with three windows flanked by 2 bays. All ground floor windows C.19 French casements. Interior. Late C.18 decoration.

Monument Type(s):

• VICARAGE? (17th century - 1601 AD? to 1700 AD?)
• COUNTRY HOUSE (18th century to Late 19th century - 1751 AD? to 1900 AD)

Full Description

Speen House is described in its listing as an 18th century house of cement render with old tile hipped roofs, remodelled in the early 19th century <1>. Pevsner notes its central bow window up the whole three storeys <2>, but it was not described in Murray's architectural Guide <3>. It lies within grounds on the top of Speen Hill facing south, in a position that is visible from across the Kennet Valley. Attached to its western side are former outbuildings that were converted to residential use, and next is a single storey garden house; both are also Grade II listed <1><4>. Two buildings are shown in this location on the Speen Manor map of 1729-30 <5>, although in a substantially smaller plot. It is marked as Glebe land (ie owned by the church, with which the local living was endowed), and appears to have been used as the parsonage house. The Glebe Terrier of 1634 <6> mentions the parsonage house, barn, orchard garden and 2 plots of pasture.

Walter Money's history of Speen <7> includes extracts from a 14th century document about the appropriation of the advowson of the Rectory of Speen. This appears to show that 'the Bishops of Salisbury used their Rectory-house at Speen as an Episcopal residence, to which a Domestic Chapel or Oratory was attached'. Money was sure that this was the Rectory or Parsonage at Speen House, a situation 'of great beauty, commanding a view of Highclere on the opposite side of the valley, a former seat of the Bishops of Winchester...and not exceeded in the neighbourhood for its extended and varied prospect'. However, he said that no remains of the Bishop's Chapel existed, and that the dining room and room above it had been added on at the end of the 18th century to a former farmhouse.

The Victoria County History <8> summarised the debate about the conjectural location of the Roman settlement of Spinae being within the grounds of Speen House, a theory popular in the 19th century but since discounted due to the paucity of Roman finds.

Historic England visited the adjacent Old Coach House in 2016 when it was decided to remove it from National Heritage List for England due to alterations during its conversion in the 1980s <14>. However the designation decision report noted that the group of buildings at Speen House have considerable group value as part of the development of the house and grounds: Speen House itself, with which the Old Coach House is likely to be coeval, dates from the 18th century, though may incorporate fabric from an earlier building, and was remodelled in the 19th century. Also forming part of the group are the garden house and outbuilding, both listed at Grade II, and a walled garden and ancillary buildings <14>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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