Apsley House is a 19th-century house in Swindon, England, standing on the north side of Bath Road in what is now known as the Old Town.[1]
It was built c.1830–1840 and faced in ashlar Bath stone, and has a shallow porch over the central entrance, in the style of a Doric portico.[2] The house has two storeys at the front and three at the rear; a modernist extension was added to the right in 1963–1964, extending along Victoria Road above a row of shops.[3]
The house was for a long time the home and business headquarters of the Toomer family, who ran a local coke and coal business.[4] From 1930 until 2021 it housed the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery[5] but the museum vacated the building and the house was put up for sale when its owners, Swindon Borough Council, decided it was no longer suitable and required major repairs.[6]
Apsley House was designated as Grade II listed in 1951.[2] Julian Orbach, updating Nikolaus Pevsner's Wiltshire volume in 2021, calls it a "good ashlar villa".[3]
References
edit- ^ Atkinson, Angela (15 July 2019). Swindon in 50 buildings. Amberley. ISBN 978-1445690476.
- ^ a b Historic England. "Bath Road Museum, Apsley House and gate piers (1023456)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
- ^ a b Orbach, Julian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2021). Wiltshire. The Buildings Of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. p. 694. ISBN 978-0-300-25120-3. OCLC 1201298091.
- ^ "Apsley House, Bath Road, Swindon". swindon182.rssing.com.
- ^ "Swindon Museum and Art Gallery". Culture24. Archived from the original on 12 August 2018 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Kendall Adams, Geraldine (6 July 2021). "Anger over proposal to close Swindon Museum and Art Gallery building". Museums Association. Retrieved 5 January 2023.