Old Abbey House and walls to Abbey Close and Trendell's Garden, Abingdon on Thames, Oxfordshire

Summary

House, mostly later C18 with the earliest parts of the north service range probably dating from the early C18, integrating fragments of earlier, possibly late-C16 fabric. The building was extended and modified from the mid-C19 and in 1904-1905, with minor alterations later in the C20 to accommodate council offices and archives.

Description

House, mostly later C18 with earliest parts of the north service range probably dating from the early C18, integrating fragments of earlier, possibly late-C16 fabric. The building was extended and modified from the mid- to later C19 and 1904-5, with minor alterations later in the C20 to accommodate council offices and archives.

MATERIALS: the entrance front of the main house and service wing are of rubblestone with predominantly C18 red brick dressings. Later C19 and early C20 additions are in red brick and dressed stone. On the eastern, garden front, the upper floor is rendered, with C19 brick dressings, the later ground-floor bays and the billiard room are in brick and dressed stone. There are slate roofs to all parts of the house.

PLAN: the main body of the late-C18 house was roughly square on plan, of two storeys divided into three symmetrical bays, with a hipped roof. A central corridor runs east-west with rooms to either side on each floor, served by stacks to the outer walls. Rooms on the garden front were altered, apparently in the mid- to later C19, by the addition of square and bowed ground floor bays, and the series of rooms leading to a new billiard room were added. In 1904-5, the entrance and stair halls were reordered and the house was extended by a bay to the south. The west front was altered, moving the entrance to the original southern bay and inserting a large stair window, serving a new or realigned stair.

The former service wing, which probably predates the house and is thought to be of early-C18 date, is of two storeys and three structural bays, with an internal stack between the central and southern bays and now truncated stacks serving the northern rooms.

C19 accommodation was added in a piecemeal fashion, enclosing formerly external walls and creating a small inner yard behind the billiard room and corridor. In the late C19 or early C20 a new service stair was inserted, running from ground floor to attics.

There are cellars beneath the south-western part of the main house, which may also predate the house.

EXTERIOR: the main house, originally symmetrical, has an asymmetrical entrance elevation. It has flush, soft red brick quoins and a shallow moulded timber cornice to a hipped roof. Tall stacks are rendered and have deep moulded caps. To the right, is a large projecting porch in red brick with stone dressings, reached by curved stone steps. It has a deep canopy with a flared roof supported on robust consoles. Within a moulded, round-arched entrance is a pair of oak doors with moulded muntins. They have unusually long, ornate strap hinges which follow the curve of each doorhead and matching door furniture. Above the entrance is the inscription: ‘THROUGH THIS WIDE OPENING GATE/NONE COME TOO EARLY NONE RETURN TOO LATE’ (the source of the quotation appears to be Alexander Pope's poem ‘The Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Paraphrased’ written in 1734). On each return is a small window. The inner entrance is lined in red brick and has a moulded stone inner doorcase, along with glazed margin lights and an overlight set with coloured glass; the doors are part-glazed, with the lower sections panelled. To the left of the entrance is a single-storey canted bay in similar manner, with sash windows and a low-level light to the cellar stair; to the right is a narrow window with coloured leaded glass. On the first floor the outer windows are sashes in earlier openings with brick quoins and flat brick arches. The central window, which had been similar and was enlarged in 1904-5, is a three-light mullion and transom window, also with leaded lights and coloured glass. To the right, the set-back, two-storey bay, added in the early C20, and matching the earlier house, has a single, cambered-arched sash window per floor. In contrast to the cornice of the original house, the southern extension has oversailing eaves. The south elevation of the added bay is rendered and to the left has a tripartite ground floor window and sashes above, and a blank wall accommodating a stack to the right.

The garden front has a central entrance within a stone Tuscan doorcase with fluted columns and a dentil cornice. The bow window to the right, square bay to the left, and added southern bay have plain Tuscan pilasters and a dentil cornice that closely echo this detail but are not identical. The square bay and southern bay have sash windows, those to the southern bay are horned. The bow window has casements with fixed overlights. The first floor, in five bays, has horned sashes with brick dressings beneath slightly cambered arches; a photograph of around 1900 shows that the central window was previously pedimented. The billiard room’s garden elevation is of a single storey, with canted bays faced in stone, matching the rest of the house. The north wall has a shaped gable over a rough rubblestone base, parts of which may predate the building (possibly originally a boundary wall integrated as part of the later phase). The garden elevation of the single-storey series of rooms linking it to the house is predominantly glazed, with horned sashes above rendered panels, between simplified Tuscan pilasters; this has a pitched tile roof.

Service wing

The west elevation of the two-storey service wing has four unequal window bays and an entrance in the northern bay. It is probable that much of the fabric and structure of this elevation belongs to the early C18, predating the main body of the house. The door, which is later C20, is beneath a fanlight in a repaired brick opening. It is set beneath what is probably an early-C20 coved canopy, supported on brackets on stone corbels. Windows on both floors have red brick quoins and cambered arches, in the second bay these are wide and on the first floor the arch has been rebuilt. Windows to the ground floor are predominantly of C20 date and are, from north to south, deep-set four-light casements, a six-over-six pane sash and two-light casements. The north gable wall and plinth of the southern bay are rendered. On the first floor is an unusual set of probably C18, multi-paned, metal casements with pointed arched glazing in rectangular frames. The northern window is tripartite and divided by a transom and the wider central section has intersecting glazing bars. Most have their original quadrant stays and spiral catches.

INTERIOR: the interiors are described below with numbers referencing Oxfordshire Buildings Record: OBR 219 Old Abbey House, Abingdon (2014, revised 2020).

Apart from the drawing room, which was subdivided to form a muniment room for the council, the principal rooms have changed relatively little since the 1920s and most retain their plan form, fireplaces, moulded cornices and ceilings, doorcases, doors and windows with their fixtures. The entrance hall and inner stair hall are treated in a Jacobean revival manner, divided by an Ionic, timber screen enriched with strapwork decoration. The open-well, closed-string stair has robust square sectioned moulded newels and splat balusters. South-eastern rooms of 1904-5 (G6, G7) have moulded ceilings and ovolo moulded frames with coloured glass panes and six-panel doors. There is a six-panel door to the cellar which has a flagstone floor and rubblestone walls, possibly pre-dating the rest of the house.

The former dining room, later the committee room (G4) is lined in small panelling in vernacular revival manner, incorporating a fireplace within a wide alcove flanked by smaller alcoves, one with a door to the kitchen. The chimneypiece has a timber mantelpiece, with shallow shelves below it; the grate (of around 1900) is flanked by Delft tiles.

In contrast to the above are the rooms appointed with classical decoration and fittings. These have richly moulded friezes and cornices, in the inner hall for example, with an anthemion pattern; doorcases have panelled linings and tall, enriched bracketed cornices and doors are of six fielded panels. The former morning room, later the Mayor’s parlour (G1) has a marble chimneypiece, deep moulded cornice and frieze, a panelled ceiling which mirrors the bow window, an enriched, moulded doorcase and a six-panelled mahogany door. The window has a panelled architrave and shutters. The former drawing room (G9), now subdivided, has similar doorcases and panelled window
architraves.

The frieze and cornice of the inner hall continues to the passage and entrance lobby to the garden which has an inner glazed screen with a central door, all with slender glazing bars with shaped heads. On the first floor the equivalent space was formerly two rooms, one possibly a dressing room, one with an anthemion cornice, one with enriched brackets.

On the first floor, most rooms in the original house have richly moulded cornices and doorcases and have classically detailed chimneypieces. Of particular note are the fireplace in F20, which has paired, reeded columns with paterae at the base, relief panels depicting putti and wreathed female heads, and marble slips; the fireplace in F24 which retains its C19 gothicised grate; and an early C20 cast-iron patented Gold Medal Eagle Grate (F21), which has doors enclosing the grate and opening side panels disguised as tiles, in a moulded oak frame.

The billiard room (G32) is at the northern end of a series of linked rooms, leading from the main house. The dado is lined in diagonal match boarding laid in chevron pattern, and chamfered vertical boards above. The upper lights of the windows have coloured glass panels, in a standard decorative pattern for the day, as seen elsewhere in the house, but also include lozenge shaped painted glass panels depicting the Crow and Pitcher and the Quack Frog from Aesop’s Fables. It is separated from an ante room (G34) by a pair of glazed doors that have coloured glass panels at the centre of which is a white rose. The ante room has coloured glass to the windows, noted to have been resited from the Victorian east window of Church St Nicholas (OBR report, p31). This room is separated from G35 to the south by a glazed screen. The ante room fireplace has a richly moulded and inlaid timber surround and tiled (probably Minton) slips, again depicting the white rose. To the rear of the ante room is a blocked C19 Gothic arched opening.

Within the ground floor of the former service wing a few elements are visible: a shallow, chamfered ceiling beam with run-out stops, a now internal, splayed mullion window and evidence of some fragments of reused timbers, possibly fragments of the late-C16 house (known as Master Stone’s Lodgings) which is recorded to have been in roughly the same position within the abbey precinct. Deep cornices and door architraves on the less altered first floor point to an earlier C18 date for this range. Fixtures and fittings include a C19 four-centre arched stone fireplace (G20). On the first floor, there is a simple moulded C18 fireplace surround (F10), and a late-C19 fireplace surround with a cast-iron grate (F5). In the northern room (F1), formerly the bishop’s Prebendal, is a later C19 bolection moulded fireplace surround and round headed grate, lined with Minton tiles designed by John Moyr Smith, their chief designer, depicting figures from Arthurian legends.

The service stair from ground floor to the attic has square newels with shaped heads, stick balusters and a deep, moulded, oak rail. The roof over the service wing is of side purlin construction, cut away to accommodate the stair. There is a lath and plaster partition between the northern and central bays.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: there are rubblestone walls and piers with some ashlar work to the north side of the plot and to Abbey Close (west), which are connected to Old Abbey House. The north boundary wall integrates a tall gateway with a Gothic arch through to the garden to the east of the house and several blocked openings. It is possible that the limestone ashlar blocks in the north wall may be reused material from earlier demolished abbey buildings. There are two bicycle shelters to the west of the north range, built against earlier rubblestone walls. The low-set, capped rubblestone wall to the west of the house to Abbey Close appears to date to the later C20; rebuilt following the changes to the road layout of Abbey Close. Other walls not connected to the house which stand within the bounds of the scheduled area for the remains of Abingdon Abbey (National Heritage List for England (NHLE entry 1006309) have not been assessed.

History

Old Abbey House is situated within the grounds of the former Abingdon Abbey. The house is thought to stand roughly on the site of a house known as Master Stone’s Lodging. A timber-framed house of this name existed by the 1520s and was still standing by the time of the Dissolution but was subsequently rebuilt in stone by the Blacknall family (with the house described in 1592 as being newly built). Ownership of the house changed numerous times in the C17-C18, with several corresponding campaigns of building work notable in the present building. The house was owned for the early part of the C17 by the Blacknall family, passing through marriage to the prominent Verney family in 1629 and then sold to Richard Dewe by the time of the English Civil War (1642-1652). There is some oblique documentary evidence for the evolution of the house over the course of the C18, suggesting that development of part of the north wing took place in the early part of the C18, and building of most of the main body of the house dates to around the 1780s. From the records of the antiquary Thomas Hearne, an ‘old inscription’ discovered on a wall of the house was reported in November 1718, but was lost by the time of inspection as a result of the building being 'done up' by workmen (see OBR 219, p23); this suggests a phase of substantial work undertaken at this time, but implies that parts of an earlier building may have been retained. By 1789, when it was sold to the deputy lieutenant Charles Hatt, it was known as Abbey House and was described as ‘lately built’; this probably referring to the core of the main house, which appears to date from around this time. It is likely that the earlier north range was integrated at this stage with the main house as a service wing, with the brick quoins and straight joint in the rubblestone of the western principal elevation marking the extent of the two C18 phases.

Abbey House was tenanted by Edwin James Trendell in 1847, who then bought it at auction in 1852, remaining there until his death in 1900. Described in the sale particulars of this time as 'a most desirable residence', it included a coach house, stable yard and gardens and over three acres of land. The house was laid out with an entrance hall, library, breakfast and dining rooms on the ground floor and a drawing room, five bedrooms, closet and servants’ rooms above, as well as a kitchen, scullery and laundry. An indenture plan of 1853 sets out the extent of the house and grounds, the footprint of the house apparently without the projecting window bays on the garden front. Trendell was a grocer and wine merchant of some standing locally, serving as a JP and later Mayor of Abingdon. He improved the house, which extended over the site of the former abbey church and precinct, certainly adding the billiard room which overlooks the grounds. In the spirit of the time he laid out a formal Italian Garden to the east of the house, informal grounds planted with trees beyond it, and erected a folly comprised of archaeological and architectural fragments adjacent to the former abbey church. Photographs taken in around 1900 show the entrance front of the house with a central porch, and C19 tripartite window in the position of the current bay window, and the garden front with the billiard room present. Interestingly, the photograph of the front also suggests that the current first floor windows at the southern end of the service range were not in place, potentially meaning these were either re-sited or reinstated at a later date.

In the early 1900s, the house was acquired by the Rt Revd James Leslie Randall, first Suffragan Bishop of Reading, who lived there until his death in 1922. It was under his auspices that the entrance and stair hall were altered and the southern bay added. In 1923, when the site came up for sale, A E Preston (the local historian, Alderman, and Mayor of Abingdon) instigated the purchase of Old Abbey House by the Borough of Abingdon as an important historic site within the town. The sales details of 1923 noted a hall, five reception rooms, a billiard room, thirteen bedrooms and ‘excellent servants’ offices’. The building was leased to Abingdon Town Council and included various offices and the Mayor's parlour until it was vacated in 2014. The house was sold by the local authority in 2021.

Reasons for Listing

Old Abbey House, Abingdon, built in two principle C18 phases with later Cl9 and early C20 additions, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the survival of a significant proportion of historic fabric and elements of the formal arrangement of the distinct early and late-C18 phases of construction in the principal west front of the house, integrating some fabric of earlier origin, potentially associated with an earlier house on the site built in around 1592;
* for the rich and varied range of fireplaces, tilework, carpentry and decorative features throughout the house, which constitute an impressive repository of domestic architectural fittings of high quality from the C18 through until the early C20.

Historic interest:

* as an important and prominent post-Dissolution building within the historic precinct of the Abbey of Abingdon, which integrates salvaged masonry from demolished medieval abbey buildings in the house and boundary walls.

Group value:

* with numerous listed buildings associated with the historic abbey precinct, including the Grade I-listed Church of St Nicholas (NHLE entry 1048110) and Abbey Gate (NHLE entry 1368671), along with the scheduled remains of Abingdon Abbey (NHLE entry 1006309) and other Grade II-listed houses situated on Abbey Close. The house also has a close historic and visual connection with the listed monuments in Abbey Gardens to the east, which are associated with Edwin Trendell, who resided at Old Abbey House between 1847 and 1900.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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