New Wardour Castle

New Wardour Castle is a Grade I listed English country house at Wardour, near Tisbury in Wiltshire, built for the Arundell family. The house is of Palladian style, designed by the architect James Paine, with additions by Giacomo Quarenghi, who was a principal architect of the Imperial Russian capital city, Saint Petersburg.

The building of the house was begun in 1769 and completed in 1776, with additional buildings being added in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1961 to 1990, it was the home of Cranborne Chase School, an independent boarding school for girls.

New Wardour Castle is approximately 0.75 miles (1.2 km) from Old Wardour Castle, which was left as a landscape feature of the parkland of the new house. This was formerly the home of the Arundell family before it was besieged, damaged and slighted in the Civil War.

The building is constructed from limestone ashlar with hipped Welsh slate roofs and comprises a square main block with flanking pavilions. The north front has a rusticated basement below a piano nobile, with mezzanine and attic floor over.

The house is described by English Heritage as "one of the finest Palladian houses in Wiltshire". It has a Roman Catholic chapel and a rare rotunda staircase. There are many painted ceilings and ornate fireplaces, typical of the building's period.

The ground floor of the rotunda is in limestone with black insets and a central black and white marble decoration. There are entrances from the north and south with double sweeping staircases on either side. The rotunda staircase was designed by James Paine and is 144 feet (44 m) round; the balustrade is fitted with glass candle lamps.

The first floor has a wooden floor and has Corinthian columns supporting the ornately coffered, domed ceiling which is decorated with reliefs of musical instruments and a central light. The surrounding balustrade is made of fine ironwork with gilded flowers and a wooden handrail. Also on the first floor is an organ.

The Roman Catholic chapel, integral to the house, is known as All Saints Chapel, Wardour. It is also the Roman Catholic parish church. It was enlarged in 1789 by Henry Arundell, 8th Baron Arundell of Wardour, to the designs of John Soane. From its beginning, it served the needs of a substantial local recusant community and still holds regular Sunday masses. Due to its exceptional acoustics, it is also sometimes used for musical events.