Listed Building: EASTBURY HOUSE INCLUDING ATTACHED WEST COURTYARD AND GATEWAY. (103668)

TARRANT GUNVILLE ST 91 SW EASTBURY 4/40 (5/2) Eastbury House including attached 14.7.55 west courtyard and gateway. GV I Service ranges to mansion, now a country house. By John Vanbuzrgh for George Dodington and George Bubb. 1717 to 1738. C19 additions. Greensand ashlar with slate roofs having end ashlar stacks and stone copings. Main facade is now to the south. Symmetrical, 2 and 3 storeys, 9 bays, 3:3:3. Central block forms a 3 storey tower with plain parapet. Ground floor has open loggia of round-headed arches with moulded archivolts, plain imposts and rectangular piers. Behind this are round-headed sash windows with glazing bars and a central panelled door. The outer bays each have 3 bulls-eye windows with ashlar architraves below a plain entablature with a moulded cornice. The central tower has 3-round headed sash windows with ashlar architraves connected at the springing line by a plat band. Above a further plat band are 3 small, segmentally headed sash windows. Below the parapet is a modillioned cornice. The general detailing of the other facades is broadly similar. The courtyard gateway is of Greensand ashlar and is of a single round arch having plain plinths and string courses to the piers. Above is an entablature with corbel table. Buttresses to the sides are coped with stone scrolls. 2 trees of considerable proportions have rooted themselves in the top of the gateway. Internal features: (RCHM). These are mainly of c.1800 and include a number of chimneypieces, pedimental doorways and a staircase with turned balusters, square newels, a moulded handrail and a dado with fielded panelling. The north range has an original stable staircase with turned balusters, moulded handrails and plain newel-posts. The original mansion was one of Vanburgh's most important houses and his third largest behind Blenheim and Castle Howard. It was demolished as an untenantable eyesore between c.1775 and 1782 and the materials are to be seen reused in many farmhouses and cottages in the surrounding area. (RCHM, Dorset, vol.IV, 90-93, no.2. Newman, J. and Pevsner, N. The Buildings of England: Dorset, 1972, p.192/3.) Listing NGR: ST9323012707

Record last edited

Sep 3 2024 2:57PM