Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/432

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��with remains of the pilasters dividing the bays. The windows have for the most part 18th-century sashes, but some of the cut-brick heads and sills remain, and the first-floor window in the gable, though possibly not original, has an arched head and square-faced wooden mullions and transom, with leaded casements. The remainder of the exterior is of no great interest, a new wing has been added on to the east end, and the whole of the west wall, in which is the entrance, is modern.

The hall is now quite small, being only a fragment of the original. At the top of the north wall is a wooden balustrade, which is now blocked up on one side. All the doors opening into the rooms from the hall are panelled and hung in solid carved frames. The landing above is supported by a massive beam which rests on carved and moulded pilasters, and at the end of the hall is a massive staircase with large square-carved newels and moulded tops, and in the place of balusters there are carved pierced panels of

��winged amorino in a wreath, and others occur in the ceiling, among swags of fruit, gryphons, &c. The tympanum at the east end has similar strapwork and a shield bearing the arms of Shiers with helm, crest, and mantle.

The bedroom over the dining-room has a flat ceil- ing with a moulded dentil cornice and wide moulded ribs enriched with running patterns of fruit and festoons, and in the centre is a large oval wreath con- taining a female figure holding a palm branch in her right hand and some uncertain object in her left. The room over the kitchen, used as a nursery, has also an ornamental ceiling with flowered ribs.

The out-buildings to the north-west of the house are L-shaped, built of brick with the exception of the lower portion of the north side, which is of flint. They appear to be of somewhat earlier date than the rest, perhaps c. 1600, and retain a good deal of Gothic character.

The front is divided into two stories by a moulded

���OUTBUILDINGS, SLYFIELD HOUSE, GREAT BOOKHAM

��strapwork. At the foot of the stairs are original dog- gates.

The drawing and dining rooms on the south side of the ground-floor are panelled, and the former has also a fine plaster ceiling with fleurs de lis, swags, &c., in guilloche borders, and in the centre is a figure of ' Plenty.' Over the fireplace of this room are the arms of Shiers carved in oak, impaling those of Rutland of Mitcham, which are Gules a border engrailed or with an inescutcheon of the like coat. The dining-room fireplace has. plain black marble jambs and white marble moulded shelf, and is apparently original.

On the first floor all the rooms are panelled, and several of them have very fine ceilings, the best one being in the south-west room over the drawing-room and entrance. It is coved and has an intricate strap- work design with a central cartouche containing a

��brick frieze with architrave and cornice, the lower story having at the east end a pair of rusticated brick pilasters with Ionic capitals and moulded bases, pre- sumably marking one jamb of an opening now other- wise destroyed, the building having been cut short at this point and made up with later brickwork. The windows in both stories are nearly square with moulded brick labels and wood frames with leaded casements, the labels in the upper story being continuous, break- ing up over the windows and over shallow round- headed recesses which alternate with the windows in the eastern part of the range. There is a deep modillion cornice under the eaves as on the principal building. The west front is like the north, but is of brick throughout, and has a plainer cornice and a doorway with a three-centred head.

The Domesday Survey mentions a mill at Great

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