Listed Building record MDO23161 - Nineveh Court, attached carriage arch and screen wall, Canford School, Canford Magna

Sculpture gallery built in 1851 by Sir Charles Barry in white brick in Flemish bond with Portland limestone dressings and Westmorland slate roof. 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'.

A former sculpture gallery to Cranford House which was built in 1851 to the designs of Sir Charles Barry. Now used as the tuck shop to Cranford School, it is built from white brick in Flemish bond with Portland stone dressings and a Westmorland slate roof. The building is single storeyed and is of a Greek cross plan with a porch containing the entrance arm. Above the entrance archway there is a sunken panel inscribed THESE SCULPTURES/ WERE BROUGHT FROM/ NINEVEH/ AND PRESENTED TO SIR JOHN GUEST BART/ BY THEIR DISCOVERER/ HENRY LAYARD/ IN THE YEAR MDCCLI. 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 in 1932 and 1959 and are now mostly in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Listed. <2>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 212 (Monograph). SDO149.

‘(30) CANFORD MANOR … additions continued to be made in the later 19th century, notably the building in 1851 of the Nineveh Court, E. of the kitchen, to house the Assyrian antiquities collected by Sir Henry Layard, son-in-law of Sir John Guest.’

<2> DOE (HRR), 13 Sept 1995, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest: Borough of Poole amendment 1995, 958-61 (Scheduling record). SWX3780.

<3> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BF097429 (Index). SDO14738.

CANFORD SCHOOL, CANFORD MAGNA, POOLE

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1346219 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 10 2023 4:43PM