Wilbury House or Wilbury Park is an 18th-century Neo-Palladian country house in the parish of Newton Tony, Wiltshire in South West England, about 8.7 miles (14 km) northeast of Salisbury. It is a Grade I listed building,^[1] and the surrounding park and garden are Grade II listed.^[2]

The park is immediately north of Newton Toney village, on both banks of the River Bourne, and extends north beyond the house into Cholderton parish.^[2]

Architecture

The house was built around 1710 by and for William Benson, a country esquire and amateur architect, in the style of Inigo Jones.^[1][3] It was a modest country villa, single-storey with basements and attics. The south front was based on John Webb's 1661 Amesbury Abbey,^[1] where Benson had been a tenant.^[4] The original design for the house was featured in Vitruvius Britannicus in 1715.^[5] Pevsner describes Benson's design as "the first, not Neo-Palladian, but Neo-Inigo-Jones house in England".^[6]

Fulke Greville seems to have largely rebuilt the house in 1781.^[7] There were further changes in the next century, turning it into a substantial house. An 1813 engraving in The Beauties of England and Wales shows a pediment on the south portico which is no longer present, and a different arrangement of windows above it.^[8]

The present two-storey house has its entrance on the north side, where a three-bay porch on Ionic columns was probably added c.1800–1810. The seven-bay south front, overlooking the gardens, is flanked by large pavilion-like rooms added c.1760, partly octagonal and projecting forward. In the centre, the three-bay portico has Corinthian columns and a door of c.1770. The octagonal extensions have balustraded parapets, and the rest of the house has a cornice and low parapet, with six urns on the south side.^[1][7]

After the renovations overseen by Miranda Guinness in the early 21st century, the whole is faced with a pale yellow lime render.^[7][9]

Benson based the internal layout on Palladio's Villa Pojana;^[10] Orbach describes the double-height hall, with panelling and plasterwork, as "splendid",^[7] and when the house was listed at Grade I in 1953, the description stated that it has an "outstanding period interior of the early 18th century", with improvements later that century.^[1]

Later owners

Benson sold the house and manor sometime after 1629, and they passed through several owners.^[11] Around 1739 the property was bought by Fulke Greville (1717–1806), Sheriff of Wiltshire for 1744, and later MP for Monmouth and a minor diplomat.^[1] Greville sold it c.1783, and from 1803 it was owned by Sir Charles Malet; it would remain in the Malet family for over a century.

Sir Charles (1752–1815) had been created a baronet in 1791 for his diplomatic services in India, while an official of the East India Company. His son Alexander (1800–1886) was also a diplomat, as was the 4th baronet, Edward (1837–1908). Sir Harry, 7th baronet (1873–1931) sold all his landholdings in the parish around 1925: three farms were sold separately, and workers' houses were bought by their tenants,^[12] while the house, its park, Home farm and Warren farm were sold to J. A. St. G. F. Despencer-Robertson. That land was bought in 1939 by Edward Grenfell, 1st Baron St Just, a partner in the merchant bank Morgan, Grenfell & Co., MP for the City of London and a director of the Bank of England.^[11]

Peter Grenfell (1922–1984) inherited the property from his father in 1941, and his second wife Maria Britneva – a Russian-born actress who became Tennessee Williams' literary executor – continued to live there until her death in 1994. The actor Rupert Everett, a friend of Maria, described the Wilbury estate in his memoir as "tumbledown".^[13] During her ownership, a formal garden was laid out south of the house.^[2]

Following Britneva's death in 1994, the house was bought in 1996^[2] by Miranda Guinness, widow of Benjamin Guinness of the Dublin brewing family. She engaged the architects Peregrine Bryant to carry out careful restoration between 1998 and 2004,^[7][9][14] and redesigned the gardens.^[2] The house was inherited by her son Rory in 2010.^[15]

Grounds

The main entrance to the grounds is south of the house, on the edge of Newton Tony village. Here is a lodge built in 1909 in classical style, with pedimented gables disguising its flat roof, and a loggia behind Tuscan columns.^[16]

A park was laid out around the house in the 18th century, with avenues, vistas and woodland.^[2] It is possible that William Benson or Henry Hoare, a later owner, may have engaged the landscape designer Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738); he is known to have worked at Amesbury Abbey.^[17]

North-east of the house, an avenue leads to a small octagonal summerhouse with a domed roof, built over an ice-house. It was built around 1710 and restored in 1899 and again after 1998, and is Grade II* listed.^[18] Other garden features include an 18th-century flint grotto, in woods south-west of the house.^[19]

Today

In 2002, the house and estate were in divided private ownership.^[2] The house is private and not open to the public, except for specific tours.^[15]

In media

The house was the filming location as Pendersleigh, the country house where Maurice visits his friend Clive, in the 1987 film Maurice.^[20] Lady Maria St. Just, an actress and trustee of the estate of Tennessee Williams, was a friend of Merchant and Ivory. In 1979 they had been weekend guests at Wilbury Park, which made an impression on James Ivory, and he chose this location for the film.