Blounts Court, Potterne: the story of a Wiltshire house, by Norman Beale

Blount’s Court is a neo-gothic house on a hill to the edge of the Wiltshire village of Potterne, three miles south of Devizes. It is not an outstanding example of its genre and is no longer set in magisterial isolation; but it certainly still dominates all the surrounding, modern, buildings. The house and its complex remain an impressive set of structures and there is a story to tell ― of enterprise, of financial power, of fashion, of upstairs/downstairs, of tragedy, of social change, of decline, of speculation and even of war. Norman Beale, a retired GP who now lives in part of the house, tells its story, and that of the dynasty, the Stancombs, whose house it was. July 2015, 70 pages, illustrated paperback, £6.00, ISBN 978-1-906978-31-0