Listed Building record MDO47651 - Court House, Sydling St Nicholas

Court House, a two-storyed, irregular-shaped building of plastered rubble and slate roof. The house is probably of early C16th origin, to which period the south wing may belong. Extensive alterations and additions were made in the C18th and C19th. <2>

Court House (name confirmed) as described above. (See ground photographs). <4>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1903 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 63009932) Court House [NR]

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 233-34 (Monograph). SDO97.

‘(6) Court House, 30 yards N. of the church, is of two storeys with cellars under the N. wing. The walls are for the most part covered with stucco, some are of brick and clunch. There was a house here in the 16th century and some clunch walling in the S. wing of the present building may be part of it. Hutchins records that it was bought by the Smiths in 1718. Towards the end of the third quarter of the 18th century Sir John Smith and Elizabeth (Curtis) his wife considerably altered and enlarged the house; an engraving in Hutchins shows a plain classical E. front with urns on the parapet. At the beginning of the 19th century further changes were made, the E. front was completely altered and the present projecting centre portion either added or remodelled in revived Gothic style and the other windows altered to match. The house was again restored in 1864–8.
The E. front contains the main entrance-door under a squat embattled tower with diagonal-buttresses and pinnacles and over the first floor window a roundel carved with the arms of Smith with a scutcheon of Curtis; adjoining the tower on the S. is a short range in similar style; to N. and S. some distance back are the gabled ends of the N. and S. wings. The windows have square heads and labels with square return stops and contain sashes. The N. front has towards the W. end a three-sided bay of two storeys with canted sides and a modern dentil eaves-cornice. In the S. front of the N. wing is a stone cut with the initials and date S.I.E. 1771. The S. wing retains some squared clunch in the N. wall, for the rest it has been entirely modernised externally.
The Outbuildings include stables to the S.W. with stuccoed walls and slate-covered roofs, with a shield-of-arms as on the house and the crest of a sitting grey-hound over the doors, and a square building, of brick with tiled roofs, in which is a stone cut with the initials and date S.I.E. 1773.’

<3> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 414 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<4> Attrill, N J, Field Investigators Comments NJA, F1 NJA 24-FEB-81 (Unpublished document). SDO14743.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453040 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 3:18PM