Listed Building: CAME HOUSE (105999)

SY 78 NW WINTERBORNE CAME 6/107 Came House 26.1.56 I GV Country House in grounds 1754-1762, by Francis Cartwright of Blandford for John Damer. 1758, Cartwright's death, after which Messrs Vile and Cobb of London employed for interior decoration. Mid C19, now entrance with porch, vestibule and cloakrooms built at west end of house. Conservatory added on the south and west of this block. Ashlar stone walls and hipped slate roofs. Composite stone stacks in central valley and at right angles to this. Plan: near circulation of rooms with hall moved from north front to south front, and subsequently in C19. North front: 2 storeys upon a basement. 7 bays, of which the centre three project as a columniated and pedimented centre piece. Basement mainly above ground level, forms a channelled podium, grilled windows with keystones. Centre piece breaks forward, four Composite columns, entablature with pulvinated frieze and carved modillions and pediment enclosing a carved cartouche with arms of Damer impaling Rush, floral festoons and date 1754. Central doorway converted to a window. Main floor centre sashes with glazing bars, plain cills and aprons, moulded eaved architraves, pulvinated friezes and cornices with pediments, the central one segmental. Upper sashes are square with the architrave moulding returned along the cills. To each side of the centre piece, the sashes have moulded architraves interrupted by keystones. Cornice continues each side with plain, shaped modillions and is surmounted by a balustraded parapet. South front has the basement storey entirely concealed. 2 storeys and attics above this. 7 bays. Centre piece is a projecting tripartite composition. Ground floor: central French window is flanked by attached Ionic columns with entablature and pediment to each side the entablature is repeated over flanking windows with pilasters. First floor: a central round headed window and two square headed windows make a variant on the normal Palladian motif, each window being flanked by Corinthianized pilasters. The arched centre window keeps below the main central pediment. Balustraded parapet. The sash windows in the flanking bays are uniform with those on the north front but the spacing is quite different. East and west ends have the cornice and parapet returned from the main front, the cornice is without modillions and the mouldings to window architraves are simpler. Lead down pipes with cisterns embossed with the crest of Damer. At the east end, the single storey passage way connecting to the kitchen annexe has its north side divided into bays by rusticated piers. The walls are finished with plat band and parapet. The kitchen annexe has a plain plinth, moulded cornice and parapet. Hipped slate roof and ashlar stacks. Two storeys. 3 windows to north elevation, sashes with glazing bars having moulded architraves and keystones. Double sash at right ground. The west end of the house has an entrance wing with a rusticated base, cornice and parapet. The entrance on the north side is by an open archway leading to a covered stair up to the doorway. The conservatory, c1840, has panelled stone piers with moulded caps and bases at the angles, carrying an entablature with pulvinated frieze and balustraded parapet. The main openings to the south are sub divided by narrow stone piers. Over the main part of the conservatory is a formerly glazed octagonal dome carried on eight fluted iron columns with acanthus leaf decoration and square pedestals. Within the octagon eight more slender fluted timber columns carry a circular trellis. Interior: important rococo interiors to the Saloon (Hall), Drawing Room and Dining Room including panelled and scrolled plaster work ceilings, fireplaces with overmantels, doorways and window architraves, all described in detail, in RCHM, see below. Library was refitted in early C19. Bookcase with glazed doors. Reset fireplace of red and white marble. Schoolroom now converted to a kitchen has rococo ceiling ornament. Staircase has stone steps with mahogany hand rail carried on scrolled wrought iron standards and a turned mahogany newel at bottom. The basement rooms are all covered with simple plastered vaulting. (R.C.H.M. Dorset II, p.384 (3), including Ground Plan. Plates 56, 57, 133, 188, 189, 190. Hutchins II, p.289). Listing NGR: SY7046688249

Record last edited

Nov 22 2023 4:24PM