Summary

A substantial mid-eighteenth century house with classical details, built as a farmhouse for Grove Farm. The former coach house and garden wall are not included in the listing.

Description

A substantial mid-C18 house with classical details, built as a farmhouse for Grove Farm, together with its attendant coach house.

MATERIALS
Local limestone ashlar with brick to the returns and rear; plain clay tile roofs; brick stacks.

PLAN
The main range has a double-pile plan, of principal rooms to the front, either side of the central entrance hall, and secondary rooms to the rear. Additions to either rear corner forming a shallow U-shape, and an additional range running north-south from the western rear corner. Former outbuildings to the north form a courtyard to the rear of the house.

EXTERIOR
The house is of two storeys, with multi-paned timber horned sash windows, and shallow-pitched hipped roofs. The main elevation is of three bays with plat band between the two floors and the central bay breaking forward slightly. Cellar windows are set under segmental arches within a plinth with a concave-moulded offset. Flight of three stone steps, with moulded noses, to stone doorcase with Doric columns and open pediment, the door half-glazed, with a semi-circular fanlight. Above is a six-over-six sash window. The wider flanking bays have eight-over-eight sash windows on each floor. The return walls are of painted brick, apart from the rear kitchen range which is unpainted red brick. To the rear, the elevations have brick cogging resembling dentil cornices set under the eaves. The fenestration to the return and rear elevations is irregular, with a variety of multi-paned sash windows, some under stone voussoirs with raised keystones. The central bay of the main range has a tall stair window with a semi-circular arched top between ground and first floors, above the rear doorway, which houses a broad C18 half-glazed door.

The west side extends slightly to the rear as a two-storey cross-wing, adjoining which is the lower kitchen range, with a steeply-pitched roof and brick elevations; that to the inner courtyard is painted to match the main range. The inner elevation of this range retains C19 casement windows to the first floor, with more recent openings to the ground floor housing C21 windows, below a plat band. Attached to the west side, parallel with this range, is an early C21 glazed orangery. The end wall of the range continues with a ramped wall with shaped brick coping, which includes a broad doorway to the small outbuilding which stands at right angles to its northern end.

Attached at the eastern corner of the rear elevation, and projecting slightly further eastwards, stands a single-storey gabled addition, dating from no later than the early C19, with a C19 casement window and an external doorway.

INTERIOR
The main house retains its mid-C18 panelled doors (some with later mouldings), simply-moulded cornices, flat-moulded architraves and picture rails, along with several contemporary fire surrounds and hob grates. Some rooms have panelled window reveals and moulded window architraves.

The entrance hall has the addition of a moulded chair rail, and opens to the rear stair hall through a wide, depressed archway with moulded imposts atop projecting timber pilasters. The open-string, open-well staircase has a wreathed handrail and curtail step, bracket-moulded tread ends and two square-section balusters to each tread. The newel posts are simply moulded, columnar and slightly bellied. The handrail is ramped up to the first floor, where the balustrade continues to form a galleried landing. The principal rooms to either side have cube proportions, each with a slightly projecting chimney breast, one with a modern replacement fire surround, the other with a mid-C18 surround with later fire grate. This room also has double doors to the garden at the side of the house, and another to an inner hall, which includes a hatch to a smoking chamber in the chimney breast serving the room to the south.

The rear rooms are less formal. That to the east side has lost its fireplace, though the projecting chimney breast remains in situ. It also has exposed, chamfered beams. This room gives access via a plain four-panelled door to the small, single storey addition at the rear corner of the house, which was reportedly previously used as a dairy or for the making of butter. It has a single window and a door to the rear courtyard. The room to the rear in the east has a large, inglenook fireplace under a wide timber bressummer, and was formerly the kitchen for the C18 house. This leads through to the present kitchen, which has lower ceilings and a deep, brick-built opening under a timber bressummer for a range. A first-floor room above the kitchen has a narrow late-C19 fireplace with a contemporary grate and simple timber surround. Running under the main range are extensive, vaulted cellars.

The two front rooms on the first floor share the proportions of those below them, though with lower ceilings. These rooms have simpler fire surrounds, one a modern replacement, but both retain their C18 hob grates. A bathroom occupies the space between them over the entrance hall. Behind these rooms, the landing has an arched opening with the same treatment as that between the entrance hall and the stair hall, giving access to the rooms in the western cross-wing.

The former coach house and garden wall are not included in the listing.

History

Honeybourne Grove House, previously also known as Grove Farm and Grove House, was constructed in about 1750 as the house for Grove Farm. The site, recorded as Honiborne Grove in documents from the late C16, lies just outside the twin settlements of Cow Honeybourne and Church Honeybourne, set to either side of Buckle Street, a stretch of Roman road linking Ryknild Street to the north with the Fosse Way to the south. There is some evidence of medieval or early post-medieval ridge and furrow cultivation in the fields surrounding the site, indicating that it was in agricultural use in this period. It was built a short distance from the agricultural buildings of Grove Farm, which lie to the north-east of the house. The house faces south, towards the Cotswold scarp, and also has views of the Malvern Hills. The house was divided from the agricultural land to the south by a haha, which allowed uninterrupted views towards the scarp; fragments of the infilled haha are still discernible in the present garden.

The tithe map of 1841 shows the main house with a rear range running northwards from its west end; this range may represent the retention of an earlier building on the site, subsequently further altered and extended. The main range of the house was double-depth in plan, with a small square room to the rear eastern corner, also shown on the tithe map. The house and farm were owned by a Charles Caldicott and Underhill Caldicott in this period, and occupied by Underhill Caldicott. The Caldicotts sold two farms, including Grove Farm, in 1854; the sales particulars mention that both farms included “good stone-built farmhouses”. The footprint of the main range remains unaltered, with the only changes through the C19 and C20 the alterations to the rear range, which appears to have been arranged as an open-fronted building, possibly with a pent roof, in the C19 and early C20, and later reduced in width back to its original dimensions. A coach house and ancillary buildings were added in the second half of the C19, forming a partially-enclosed courtyard to the rear of the house.

The house and farm were separated in 1968, the farm retaining the agricultural land apart from 11 acres around the house. Two farm cottages close to the agricultural buildings were converted to the new farmhouse for Grove Farm.

In 2002, the coach house to the rear of the house (not included), by then in disrepair, was converted to domestic use, with the attendant closure of the former coach entrance and other alterations to its fenestration. The retained windows were replaced and the interior reordered. The building was extended to the north and east by the addition of modern garaging (not included).

In 2017, a largely glazed orangery was added to the west side of the rear kitchen range, with an opening to the house created by the conversion of a window to the kitchen.

Reasons for Listing

Honeybourne Grove House, built as a farm house in about 1750, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a mid-C18 farmhouse of greater architectural pretension than many of the period; with well-designed principal elevation and subtle classical detail,

* it retains its historic plan form, and the hierarchy of the rooms and their uses is readily legible;

* the principal interior spaces are very well proportioned and retain features of high quality, including the staircase, joinery and fireplaces.

Historic interest:
* as a farmhouse of the mid-C18, set apart from its agricultural buildings, reflecting its higher status, and the changing status and wealth in agriculture in the period.

Recommended Books

• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)