Listed Building record MDO9427 - Stafford House, formerly known as Frome House, West Stafford

A country house, formerly the manor house of the vanished village of Frome Billet. The original 16th-century wing was enlarged in 1633 and the house was enlarged again in around 1848.

Stafford House, a coursed and squared rubble building of two storeys with attics was formerly known as Frome House and was once the manor house of the now deserted village of Frome Billet. The main part of the present house is E-shaped and dated 1633 on the porch, although it incorporates as its south wing part of a 16th century house. The house was enlarged in 1848-50, but in keeping with the earlier detail. <2>

SY 72449000. `Stafford House' (name confirmed) as described by Authy 2. <3>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 72449001) Stafford House and remains of (NAT) Manor House (NR)

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 265-267 (Monograph). SDO149.

'Stafford House (¼ m. N.N.W.) is of two storyes with attics and has walls of coursed, squared rubble with Portland stone dressings asnd roofs covered with stone slates. It was formerly known as Frome House and was once the manor house of Frome Billet, a village which has otherwise completely disappeard (Hutchins II, 514, and Country Life, 22 March 1962). The manor belonged to the Gould family from 1613 to 1830. The main part of the present house (Plate 139) is dated on the porch 1633 and must have beee bult by the second John Gould. The house of 1633 is E-shaped on plan and incorporates as its S. wing part of an earlier house; this is of the 16th century but may itself have been an addition to a still earlier house, for in 1530 William Long took a lease of the 'chyffe mansion' in Frome Billet. Originally only one room thick, the 1633 house was enlarged to a double pile in 1848-50 (J. Pouncy, Dorsetshire Photographically Illustrated (1857)) following the earlier advice given by Humphry Repton to Nicholas Gould, which was printed in Repton's Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816). The new work, carried out for John Floyer, who bought the house in 1830, is uniform in style with the old. A number of detail drawings for the new work and for the outbulindgs are preserved at the house; none is signed, but one bears the seal of the architect Benjamin Ferrey.

The E. part of this house is among the best specimens of early 17th-century buildings in S.E. Dorset, the use of round-headed windows throughout being unusual. The W. part is interesting as a remarkably successful pastiche, with an arcaded porch that may be compared with that at Warmwell House.

Architectural Description - The E. elevation (Plate 13) is nearly symmetrical with central porch flanked by gables over attic windows and with projecting wings at each end. The gables are surmounted by plain chimneys. The entrance to the porch has a mounded semicurcular arch with keystone dated 1633 and moulded imposts; the inner doorway has a moulded four-centred head. The windows are mostly of three round-headed lights with labels; a number of them have been lengthened, the sills being brought down below the top of the plinth. The E. end of the S. wing does not match the end of the N wing; it has two modern windows on the ground floor and single-light windows above. The S. elevation has an original projection for a staircase with a gabled roof without a parapet. The windows to this side and in the W. end of the original S. wing have been somewhat altered but are generally uniform with those in the E. front, for which they presumably served as a model. The W. elevation of the 19th-century addition has gabled projections at each end and a small gable in the centre; as in the E. front, chimneys rise from the tops of the gables. The central part has a ground-floor arcade of four round arches with moulded archivolts and imposts; the outer two arches are blind, enclosing shell-headed niches. In the middle of the levation is a shield-of-arms of Floyer impaling Bankes. The windows have round-headed lights and labels to match the E. front; in the N. projection is a two-storey bay with transomed lights; in the S. projeciton only the ground-floor window has tansomed lights, and there is a simlar transomed window in the S. return wall.

The interior has been much altered. On the first floor, in the S. wing, is a fireplace with chamfered four-centred stone head and continououis jambs and further N. is a similar fireplace. The S. staircase is of stone and appears to have been rebuilt. The eastern part of the first floor was largely refitted in the early 19th century, with reeded architraves to the doorways. The main staircase, of 1848-50, has arcaded balustrades between heavy square newels which were formerly surrounded by heraldic beasts, for which the drawings survive. The ceiling over the stairhall is divided into nine panels by plastered beams with jewel-ornament on the soffits and pendants at the intersections. The library is lined with oak bookcases in the Jacobean style, consonant with the style of the staircase.'

<3> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 29-NOV-79 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 454999 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 3:56PM