Listed Building: NINEVEH COURT, ATTACHED CARRIAGE ARCH AND SCREEN WALL, CANFORD SCHOOL (412435)

POOLE SZ0398 CANFORD MAGNA, Canford Magna 958-1/9/223 (East side (off)) 14/06/54 Nineveh Court, attached carriage arch and screen wall, Canford School (Formerly Listed as: MAGNA ROAD Canford School) (Formerly Listed as: Canford Manor) GV I Sculpture gallery, now school tuck shop. 1851, altered C20. By Sir Charles Barry. White brick in Flemish bond with Portland limestone dressings and Westmorland slate roof. Greek cross plan with porch continuing entrance arm. Single storey. Tall pointed entrance archway to S with hoodmould and many-moulded head dying into plain chamfered jambs. Pointed-arched sunk panel to gable above inscribed THESE SCULPTURES/ WERE BROUGHT FROM/ NINEVEH/ AND PRESENTED TO SIR JOHN GUEST BART/ BY THEIR DISCOVERER/ HENRY LAYARD/ IN THE YEAR MDCCLI. Entrance, formerly open, is now glazed. Chamfered and moulded doorway to right (E) side elevation with Tudor-arched head. Other 3 arms of cruciform building each have 3-light window to gable end with pointed heads and Perpendicular-style tracery. Stone-coped gables with kneelers and gable finials and angle buttresses, except to arm facing service court, which is flanked by lower single-storey extensions with chamfered stone mullion and transom windows and battlemented parapet. Rear left corner of building is joined to NE angle of John of Gaunt's Kitchen (qv) by carriage arch to service court, in wall with battlemented parapet, stepped up over archway. Carriage arch has hollow-chamfered and wave-moulded 4-centred head, and double-leaf cast-iron gates. Service court is hidden from garden to S by 9-bay screen wall of limestone ashlar, extending from front left corner of Nineveh Court to house (qv Canford School) with 1-bay return at that end. Screen originally formed garden front of the new conservatory, subsequently dismantled and its site added to service court. Wall is designed in manner of Perpendicular cloister walk with a 3-light window to each bay, now blind, with 4-centred head, Perpendicular-style tracery and hoodmould. Central cinquefoil-headed light now forms niche, outer blank lights are sub-divided by mullion and transom and have pierced quatrefoils to head; pierced trefoils to spandrels either side of central light. Stone bench below each blank window between buttresses which define bays. Diagonal pinnacles on buttresses, with crocketed finials, punctuate openwork balustrade, which has pierced trefoils, small blank shields to string course below and prominent moulded stone coping. INTERIOR: porch has tiled floor with Islamic-style patterns to tiled borders and blocked doorway to former conservatory with Tudor- arched head. Tall double-leaf cast-iron gates lead to former gallery incorporating Assyrian motifs including bulls with bearded human heads and pointed arched overthrow with winged bulls kneeling either side of Assyrian symbol. Former gallery has boarded roof with painted decoration and central square blank opening to crossing, formerly a skylight, removed in subsequent re-roofing. Patterned stained- glass windows. Before the sale of Canford Manor in 1923 the building housed an important series of Assyrian reliefs excavated at Nimrod by Sir Henry Layard and presented by him to Sir John Guest, his father-in-law. The reliefs were sold 1932 and 1959 and are now mostly in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. One Assyrian bas relief was discovered in 1994 and sold at Auction at Christies. A postcard of Canford House postmarked Feb 17 1906 records the appearance of the original central lantern turret over crossing skylight. This was square and had 2 stages. The bottom stage had 4 tall thin windows with pointed heads to each side and pinnacles. The upper stage has 2 similar smaller windows to each side and more pinnacles. (National Monuments Record: Postcards Collection). Listing NGR: SZ0341498941

Record last edited

Mar 31 2011 3:48AM