Description

SX 98 NW EXMINSTER

2/56 Spurfield

II

Rectory, now residential home for handicapped people. 1887-9 by J L Pearson for Revd.Stephen Willoughby Lawley; the contractors were Luscombe and Son.

Redbrick in English bond, some tile-hanging, and plastered and shorn timber- framed gables. Steeply pitched gabled plain tile roof with plastered deeply coved eaves. Tall brick axial and lateral stacks with thin shafts and corbelled brick cornices.

Late Victorian 'Old English' - 'Queen Anne' style.

Plan: Irregular approximately square double-depth plan with a central entrance and stair hall at the front and set back to the left a relatively small room which may have been the study. To the right of the entrance hall a large drawing room behind which is the third principal room, probably the dining room. At the centre at the back the kitchen with service rooms to its left extending into a single storey wing behind.

Exterior: 2 storeys and attic. Asymmetrical elevations. The south entrance front has a projecting gabled centre, tile hung on the first floor with a large plastered gable above and a round-arched doorway recessed to the left with stone voissoirs and large shaped timber brackets under the tile hanging and a 3-light window in a bay to the right; above there is a large 6-light window on the first floor. Set back to the left a tall 2 storey and attic, one bay section with a half-hipped roof, 4-light windows on each floor. To the right of the central gabled bay a tall lateral stack with a set-off and a 2 storey tile-hung canted bay window to its right.

The right hand east elevation has a wide 2-storey tile-hung canted bay to the right with a large jettied timber-frame gable above on 2 pairs of shaped brackets; and to the left a 4-light window on the ground and first floors with a large dormer above with a broad tile-hung gable and deeply coved eaves.

The rear (north) elevation has a timber-framed gabled dormer at the centre to the left of which is a massive lateral brick stack and to the right is a half hipped roof over the attic window.

The left (west) elevation has an asymmetrical arrangement of small windows and 2 lateral stacks rising sheer from the top of the wall with a tile-hung gable between; to the left, at the back of the house, the small single storey hipped roof service wing.

All the original windows survive; these are mostly ovolo-moulded mullion-transom windows, but only retaining their glazing bars in their top lights. The original round-headed front door has cover strips and wrought iron hinges.

Interior: The entrance hall has a polished red stone chimney-piece with 2 pairs of tapered pilasters and a cornice; and a large timber screen with debased Ionic bulbous columns and carved spandrels; one of the columns is the newel of the open-well staircase at the back of the hall. It has a balustrade with barleysugar twist balusters. The doorframes to the principal rooms have pedimented overdoors with volutes to their friezes. The front right hand drawing room has a C18 style marble chimneypiece.

Sources: Quiney A, John Loughborough Pearson (1979) page 252. Building News, 1887, 53599.

Listing NGR: SX9438787565

External Links

• Wikidata Q26390072

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