Description

KINGSWOOD

509/7/284 WOTTON ROAD
09-SEP-85 KINGSWOOD
(East side)
7
NEW INN HOUSE AND RAILINGS

GV II*
Abbey guest house, later an inn and now a private dwelling. Circa 1495 [tree-ring date]; extended circa 1519 [tree-ring date]; remodelled late C17/ early C18. Stone rubble with stone dressings and roughcast rendered front. Clay plain tile roof with gable ends and hipped corner. Rendered stone gable-end and rear lateral stacks, north end stack corbelled out and with diagonally-set brick shafts.
PLAN: The original 1495 guest house was L-shaped on plan, the 3-bay roof south range comprised a cross-passage and hall with a chamber above open to the roof, both heated from fireplaces in a lateral stack at the back and with a carriageway in the third bay at the south end with a loft above; the 5-bay roof north range comprised a parlour at the west end and a chamber above and with an attic chamber above that and a service room to the east with a chamber open to the roof and a smoke-bay at the east end. In 1519 a 1-room plan addition with a chamber was built in the angle at the rear. In the late C17/ early C18 the guest house was remodelled and refenestrated at the front.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 5-window west front; 12-pane sashes in exposed cases and some with thick glazing bars; doorway to left of centre with fielded 6-panel door, top panels glazed; carriageway to right with C20 garage doors. Left [north] return has large projecting corbelled stack with set-offs and moulded stone 2-light ground floor window with arched lights and hoodmould; wing to left rendered and with C20 fenestration. C20 windows at rear.
In front there are iron area railings with slightly splayed rounded finials.
INTERIOR: Hall and parlour with moulded axial beams and chamfered 4-centred arch stone fireplaces; similar but smaller fireplace in chambers above; north wing has chamfered cross-beams on ground and first floors with hollow-step stops; C17 panelling. Late C17/ early C18 joinery including bolection moulded and fielded 2-panel doors, plank doors with strap hinges, staircase with panelled newels, moulded handrail and missing balusters; fragment of moulded plaster ceiling and painted chevrons on joist soffits in chamber over hall. Putative garderobe on north side has been removed. Roof: 5-bays to north range and 3-bays to south range with tie-beam and collar trusses, two tiers of threaded chamfered purlins with diagonal stops, curved wind-braces, diagonally-set ridgepiece and intact common-rafter couples; east bay of north range has smoke-blackened smoke-bay separated from central bays by closed truss, but smoke escaped into central bay; west bay also separated by closed-truss and with floor for solar. 1519 addition in rear angle has clasped-purlin roof.
New Inn House is thought to have been a guest house of the Cistercian Abbey of Kingswood, founded in 1139, making it a very rare example of a virtually intact monastic guest house.
SOURCE: Bond, R; New Inn House, report by English Heritage, Historical Research and Analysis Team; 2004.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17538183

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

• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990