Some of the nineteenth century engravings of the site show a two-storey extension located
between the main house and the gatehouse. This predates the 1891 extension & was probably the
chapel built by the Benedictine Nuns in 1812, mentioned in some historic documents, & pulled
down in 1853. The nuns who occupied Caverswall Castle during the twentieth century used the
ground floor room of the 1891 extension as their chapel.
There is widespread evidence of repairs and alterations carried out during the second half of the
nineteenth century but it has been difficult to accurately date all of the work. There was
comprehensive remodelling of the interior sometime between 1853 and 1893. Most of the work
seems to have taken place during the 1860s rather than the 1890s although the list description
implies that the alterations all date from 1890. The alterations undertaken during this period include
the insertion of panelled doors, timber skirtings, cavetto moulded cornices within the corridors,
ornamental plasterwork, and the widespread remodelling of the panelling on the Ground Floor.
Much of the particular detail introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century is repeated
throughout the house. The doorcases with their narrow column shafts, a combination of gothic &
classical detail, are a particular feature and bold ovolo-moulded 6-panel doors were added at
ground floor and lower ground floor level to supplement 6-panel doors at first floor level. The 6-
panel doors feature at every level of the house, which is contrary to Georgian conventions.
Boarded doors at Lower Ground Level have been replaced as have raised & fielded panelled doors
at Ground Level.
A Country Life article of 1911 states; “the interior suffered from unfortunate Victorian restorations at
a time when a Mr Holmes of Liverpool had the place. The old woodwork was evidently thought too
plain and meagre. Much of an ornamental character was added, and the whole dealt with in the
dark and juicy manner dear to the Wardour Street of the last generation. Thus the fine hall, which
we enter from the porch, retains its old beam and rafter ceiling with ovolo mouldings, has a William
III hearth and some good panels of Jacobean arcading. But the whole thing is spoilt by the
extravagant and unsympathetic work added to the mantel-piece and doorways. So, in the dining
room, a furious chimney piece destroys the effect of the plain panelling with quiet strapwork
cornice rail….Recently, moreover, good taste has prevailed.”
When this article was written in 1911 Mr William E. Bowers was still the owner, so it is possible that
the Country Life statement is correct. However, Mr Holmes occupied the house from 1853 to 1860
and some features, such as the ironmongery on the ground floor doors, post-date the 1850s, and
belong to the Aesthetic Movement.
It is most likely that they were introduced whilst Sir Percival
Radcliffe owned the property, between 1860 and 1880. It is certain that the interior decoration was
comprehensively re-worked between 1853 and 1893, but identifying during which decade the work
was undertaken is more difficult. Most of the internal alterations were undertaken in one
comprehensive phase of remodelling.
The range of small service rooms at Lower Ground Level still retain evidence of their former
functions, particularly the Wine Cellar and Larder where nineteenth century wine bins, glasses
storage, slate shelves for cold storage & tiled surfaces all survive in situ. The evidence in situ
suggests that this was probably refitted in the 1860s.
The main alteration undertaken in 1891 was the construction of the two-storey extension. It was
reputedly designed by Charles Lynam, a Stoke based architect, and the same architect designed
the new east and lower lodges and the new parapet for the bridge over the moat. The corridor
provided easy access into the Victorian extension, without any alterations to the original floor plan.
A window at the end of this corridor, at first floor level, would have been replaced with a doorway
into the extension and the same arrangement may have existed at Ground Level. At Second Floor
Level an ovolo-moulded window still survives at the end of this corridor, in situ. An old undated
guide to Caverswall stated that Mr Bowers “brought some beautiful panelling for the interior of the
new wing from Fauld Hall near Tutbury. The exquisitely carved mantelpiece he found at an old
farm.” Photographs taken by the Missionary Sisters during the 1950s of the room used as the
chapel show some small-framed off-set early seventeenth century panelling behind an altar. This
panelling is still located within the Victorian extension, now The Moat House.
The refurbishment of both staircases incorporates a great deal of recycled timber, including
sections of re-used eighteenth century mahogany handrail, seventeenth and eighteenth century
balusters as well as a large quantity of imported nineteenth century timber. The rear staircase, for
example, has mainly mid-late nineteenth century machine-turned balusters, in a seventeenth
century pattern, and re-used square oak newel posts. The main staircase is based on an
eighteenth century style staircase. The difficulty in interpreting these alterations is that the owner
clearly intended to preserve some of the character of seventeenth and eighteenth century
staircases but added so much more in the way of detail that the eclectic mixture is quite confusing.
The staircases were probably inserted in their present form in the 1860s.
Several fireplaces and chimney stacks were added in the 1890s when the house was extended,
when the south-facing bedrooms on the second floor were remodelled and when the
Housekeepers Room was added at Lower Ground Level. The roof structure is mainly 19th century
with a number of I-section steel beams and some re-used seventeenth century beams. The lead
was replaced during the twentieth century with asphalt. Some of the chimney stacks were rebuilt
in the late nineteenth century. The stacks serving the north-east corner of the building were largely
rebuilt whilst those in the south-east corner were repaired. Only the six stacks which were more
sheltered, in the centre of the building, remain largely intact in their original early seventeenth
century form, supplemented by two stacks of the 1890s.
The 1893 floor plans show the alterations that had been undertaken to the building. All of the
partition walls are coloured differently, in a buff watercolour. However, it is unlikely that this meant
that these walls were all introduced at this time, even if the rooms were remodelled. A change in
floor level shown in 1893 on the plans in the “Night Nursery” (now RS1 & RS2) indicates the former
presence of a partition wall, which relates to the plan form of the rooms on the floor below.
By 1893 the main part of the house was laid out as follows;
• Ground floor – the Hall, Dining Room, Morning Room & Study & the Butlers Pantry. In the
extension it had a Billiard Room.

• Lower Ground Floor – Kitchen, Servants Hall, Housekeepers Room, the “Square”, Larders,
Scullery & Wine Cellar. By this date the Conservatory had a covered access from the house
via the Square. A Coal Cellar & Beer Cellar were provided in the extension.
• First Floor – Drawing Room (formerly the Great Chamber), two Bedrooms with Dressings
Rooms and one Bedroom with a Bathroom. In the extension there was another Bedroom,
Dressing Room & Bathroom.
• Second Floor – five Bedrooms, a Day Nursery and a Night Nursery
During the time that the Bowers family occupied the house, from the 1890s, there was widespread
refurbishment of the windows. Most of the leaded-light windows appear to date from this time,
largely influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement when it was much more fashionable to employ
skilled craftspeople. There also appear to be many earlier nineteenth century windows, plain
glazed casements and plain sheet glass set within brass frames, probably added as fashions
changed after the repeal of the excise duty on glass in 1845, and larger panes of glass became
more readily available. The bay windows in the main reception rooms in the southern half of the
building all have plain glazed windows, a major refurbishment of the nineteenth century. There is
an occasional eighteenth century iron or leaded-light casement, but nothing earlier than eighteenth
century.
In a wide-sweeping refurbishment during the second half of the nineteenth century all of the doors
at ground floor level were altered along with the panelled linings. A heavy moulded plaster cornice
with a deep cavetto moulding is also contemporary at both ground and first floor level. At second
floor level the cornice had been reduced to a simple roll moulding (now hidden behind a modern
fibrous plaster cornice). The stepped moulded architrave appears consistently throughout the
house at ground and first floor levels. This moulding appears to be an early eighteenth century
architrave. A narrower profiled architrave of the same period was adopted at second floor level. It
is probable, although highly unusual, that the old eighteenth century architraves were retained
when the house was remodelled and new doors were added. “Architectural Paint Analysis” would
reveal the precise phasing. The decorative brass fingerplates and door knobs were installed at the
same time as the comprehensive refurbishment. They are contemporary with the doors installed at
ground level. At ground and second floor level the geometric pattern fingerplates date from the
Aesthetic Movement (ca. 1860s–1870s). There are a few late nineteenth / early twentieth century
finger plates in an Art Nouveau style and some highly decorative finger plates to the former first
floor Drawing Room.
During the nineteenth century the panelling was comprehensively remodelled in the ground floor
rooms (RG2, RG3 and possibly RG5). The panelling in the Dining Room RG3 was very sensitively
repaired and new oak panelling spliced in. Less sensitive is the remodelled panelling along the
screens passage, which has an amalgam of seventeenth century decorative frieze panels laid in
strips with plainer seventeenth century panelling and twentieth century carved panelling added at
high level.
Throughout the house there is a mixture of sensitive repair and “restoration” of panelling and
awkward interventions and additions. For example, alongside the restored seventeenth century
panelling in the Dining Room are rather clumsy wood-grained effect panels installed within the
window reveals, which were contemporary with the installation of the cusped arched mullioned
windows in this room at the end of the nineteenth century.
The details of the heavily ornamented, dark stained carving within the Hall were repeated in a
painted scheme in the First Floor Drawing Room (RF1), using the same mouldings and stylised
herms. Combined with the dado panels, doorcases, elaborate plaster ceiling and stained glass
windows the scheme is of a single phase. The 1893 plan describes it as a Drawing Room. The
fireplace in this room appears to be a twentieth century replacement. It lacks the lavish detail of the
plasterwork and doorcases. The original fireplace may have been removed when the Missionary
Sisters divided the room into two bedrooms, documented by Sister Carmen.

The Conservatory is late nineteenth century and probably dates from the Bowers alterations. It was
attached to the house in 1893 by a covered passage and heated by a separate detached boiler
room, which has been demolished. The external brick flue which is attached to the staircase tower
& terminates above the parapet relates to this former boiler and is redundant.
The rooms within the pavilions & gatehouse were also in use in the nineteenth century.
The north-west pavilion incorporates extensive refurbishment, enlarging the ground floor windows.
The refurbishment of the south-west pavilion was simpler and the proportions of the windows were
retained.