Apsley House is a 19th-century house in

Swindon Swindon () is a town in Wiltshire, England. At the time of the 2021 Census the population of the built-up area was 183,638, making it the largest settlement in the county. Located at the northeastern edge of the South West England region, Swi ...

, England, standing on the north side of Bath Road in what is now known as the Old Town. It was built c.1830–1840 and faced in

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its h ...

, and has a shallow porch over the central entrance, in the style of a Doric

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

. 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. The house was for a long time the home and business headquarters of the Toomer family, who ran a local coke and coal business. From 1930 until 2021 it housed the

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery Museum & Art Swindon, formerly Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, is a museum and gallery in Swindon, England. It is run by Swindon Borough Council and since 2024 has been housed within the Swindon Civic Offices, council's offices at Euclid Street, ...

but the museum vacated the building and the house was put up for sale when its owners,

Swindon Borough Council Swindon Borough Council is the local authority of the Borough of Swindon in the ceremonial county of Wiltshire, England. It was founded in 1974 as Thamesdown Borough Council, and was a lower-tier district council until 1997. In 1997 it was re ...

, decided it was no longer suitable and required major repairs. Apsley House was designated as

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

in 1951. Julian Orbach, updating

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

's Wiltshire volume in 2021, calls it a "good ashlar villa".

References

{{coord, 51.55273, -1.77770, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB-SWD, display=title Buildings and structures in Swindon Grade II listed buildings in Wiltshire Grade II listed houses Houses completed in 1840