Description

In September 2007 an archaeological evaluation was undertaken by Channel 4’s ‘Time Team’ in the grounds of Hunstrete House Hotel, Somerset (NGR 364607 162084), with the aim of finding any surviving remains of the large house built in the Palladian style on the site in the 18th century – Hunstrete Grand Mansion - and of its medieval predecessor. The Palladian house is shown on maps of 1759 and 1806-7, but was still unfinished by the 1830s, when it was sold and used as a source of building materials to restore Prior Park in Bath. No building is shown on the site on a map of 1846, although it may not have been entirely demolished until 1860. Today the only surviving upstanding remains of the Grand Mansion is a five-arched arcade or portico at the northern edge of the site, depicted in an 18th century watercolour of the northern elevation of the Mansion.