Description

ST BRIAVELS SCHOOL ROAD
SO 50 SE
(west side)
6/180 Ashfield House
- II

House at the end of a row, dating from the late C18 or early C19. The building is of rendered and colourwashed stone rubble, roughly rectangular in plan, consisting of a main range of three bays facing the road (east) and two conjoined wings projecting westwards to the rear, with central valley and twin gables. There are single storey lean-to extensions to both of the rear wings, one dating from before 1842 and the other from the late C20. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate with the exception of one of the inner slopes of one wing. The main range and the northern wing have brick gable stacks, and there is a massive external chimney breast to the southen end of the main range. The main range is single depth plan, of three bays and three storeys, symmetrical, with central entrance door. The door is a C18 or early C19 6-panel flush door with batwing fanlight above, in a deeply recessed opening. The ground floor windows are tripartite 4:12:4 pane sashes, four over eight, to either side, with the central opening blocked. The wings have irregular fenestration with windows of various dates.

INTERIOR
There are principal rooms to the ground floor main range on either side of the central hallway, with a single room towards the rear in each of the projecting wings. The principal rooms have original shutters and shutter boxes. Doors to the ground floor are a mixture of C18/C19 raised and fielded six-panel doors and some C19 plank doors in the former service rooms to the rear. To the rear hall, which is accessed through an arched opening with chamfered edges to the walls, there is a winder stair to the basement, which extends under the northern half of the house only, and another, dogleg stair to the first floor. Each staircase is accsesed through a C18 or early C19 six-panel door. The basement has a door to the exterior towards the rear of the building. To the first floor, the principal rooms to the main range are largely unaltered but there has been some reordering of the rooms in the wings to the rear. The attic is unimproved, and the roof structure is consistent throughout, a late C18 or early C19 pegged timber structure with single purlins, and collars to each truss.

HISTORY
Ashfield House is recorded on the tithe map of 1842 in its current form, at which point it was The Plough Inn. However it was clearly built as a house, and so it can be surmised that it had been a dwelling for some time before becoming an inn. The form of the building is unaltered by 1886 and remains consistent through the first three epochs of OS mapping, covering the period 1886-1924.

Summary of Importance: Ashfield House is an imposing, classically inspired town house of the later C18 or early C19, consisting of a main range and two gabled wings to the rear. Its main elevation retains its original pattern of fenestration, with lte C18 or C19 sash windows, and the original six panel entrance door under a batwing fanlight. The plan form of the house is essentially intact, as is its original roof structure. The principal rooms to the ground floor retain their shutters, and there is other good joinery surviving throughout the house. There has been some internal reordering associated with the building's use as an inn in the C19. Ashfield House is a substantially intact house of the late C18 or early C19.

Listing NGR: SO5582204406

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26357007

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)