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

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17548342

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 Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)