Description

SP4631 DEDDINGTON BULLRING (East side) 8/145 Castle House 08/12/55 (Formerly listed as Castle House, Horsefair)

GV II* Rectorial manor house. C13, rebuilt probably c.1654 for Thomas Appletree; restored 1894 by Thomas Garner for H.R. Franklin; extended early C20. Coursed squared marlstone and limestone with limestone-ashlar dressings; Stonesfield-slate roofs with ashlar stacks. Complex plan based on 3 adjoining towers. 2-storey triple-gabled front, in which the left bay projects as a full-height porch, has a large 2-storey stone-mullioned bow window in the right bay, and has 4-light stone-mullioned windows with labels at first floor in the other 2 bays; the Tudor-arched main doorway is set below a segmental cornice, and the porch gable has finials and projecting moulded kneelers. Most of it probably dates from 1894 but is a re-modelling of a C17 range. A double-depth subsidiary range in similar style, set back to left, is of c.1930. To rear of main range are 3 towers. To left is a small marlstone tower of 3 storeys plus semi-basement, the 2 lower floors C13, the upper floors probably C17 with a pitched roof and small mullioned windows. Central 4-storey stair tower, projecting further to rear with a balustraded roof, has large transomed stone-mullioned windows on 3 sides; the top storey is limestone ashlar and the rear is banded with limestone. Lead rainwater heads are inscribed "A/TM/1654". Comtemporary 3-storey tower to right is also banded to rear, and has an ashlar garden front facing right which breaks around a wide full-height canted bay window, with 9-light transomed stone-mullioned windows below moulded strings, and with a 4-light semi-basement window in the high moulded plinth, all much restored after a fire of 1925. Transomed windows in rear wall, now mostly blocked, are probably original. Flat roof has a plain parapet with moulded copings. Interior: earliest tower has a first-floor chapel, the north and west walls with C13 arcades, each forming triple sedilia, and the south wall with a roll-moulded piscina, the projecting bowl mutilated; the east wall has a C17 stone fireplace, and the heavy chamfered door frame and door are probably also C17. The fine wide oak dogleg stair retains original C17 work in its lower flights, and has heavy turned balusters, fluted newels, ball finials, and a handrail of trefoil section; the ornamented closed string has elaborate soffit cusping. The chamber tower has 3 fine rooms, all with oak panelling, stop-chamfered beams and restored fireplaces with panelled overmantels; the upper rooms are probably heavily restored. C19 work in the main range includes a barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling in a bedroom, and a Jacobean-style plaster frieze in the porch room. Charles I is said to have stayed in the house in 1644. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: pp570-71; VCH: Oxfordshire: Vol XI, p97; R. Wood-Jones: Traditional Domestic Architecture in the Banbury Region, 1963, p164; Country Life, 20 June 1908)

Listing NGR: SP4675231746

External Links

• Wikidata Q17548342

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Recommended Books

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)