Listed Building record MDO9426 - Glebe Court, former Rectory, West Stafford

A rectory built in the early seventeenth century, but largely reconstructed around 1767. The building was divided into two dwellings around 1960, but has since been converted back to use as a single house. The building has a U-shaped plan, with walls mainly of brick with some stone rubble walls, though to be part of the older house, at the rear. The roof, once thatched, is now tiled and there are two brick chimney stacks. Many high-quality original details have survived in the interior, including staircase, ceilings, cornices and fire surrounds.

Glebe Court, formerly a rectory. <1>

The Old Rectory, early C17th, largely reconstructed ca.1767. A house of high quality. <3>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 267 (Monograph). SDO149.

'(7) GLEBE COURT, former Rectory (140 yds. W.S.W.), of two storeys with attic, has walls mainly of brick and a thatched roof. The house, built on a U-shaped plan very similar to (6), is of early 17th-century origin, largely rebuilt or refaced in brick and dated 1767; this work was carried out for the Rev. James Acton, rector 1762-75. (Divided into two dwellings and tiled).

The N. front is of brick laid in Flemish bond with blue headers and has the entance recessed between two projecting wings; above the entrance the wall is carried up to a steeply-pitched gable. The doorway has a timber doorcase with attached Ionic columns, entablature and pediment. There are Palladian windows over the entrance and in the ends of the wings. The S. elevation has the centre part set forward a few inches with a Palladian window on the first floor over a plain doorway; the flanking windows have plain double-hung sashes. The E. and W. sides are rendered in stucco and may be partly of the 17th-century rubble; the E. side has a 17th-century window of four lights with stone mullions and a Palladian window lighting the staircase.

The interior retains many of the original fittings of 1767; the ground-floor rooms have moulded and enriched ceiling cornices; the hall (Plate 142) has panelled walls, with enriched plaster mouldings, the doorway have eared and scrolled Doric architraves with shields-of-arms of Acton in a frieze above and the fireplace has flanking marble columns, enriched entablature and broken pediment. The drawing room and dining room also have original fireplace surrounds, the latter with flanking fluted Ionic pilasters. Other 18th-century fittings include the main staircase and ceiling cornices and moulded fireplace surrounds on the first floor.

Barn, E. of the house, is dated 1766 with initials I.A.'

<2> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 448 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 scale, 1980 (Map). SWX1197.

(SY 72398954) Old Rectory [NAT]

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 868644 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 3:56PM