Listed Building record MDO13563 - Beech House, Bridge Street, Sturminster Newton

Seventeenth century house with eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century additions and modifications. Squared and coursed rubble walls with ashlar dressings. Slate roof with gable ends and rendered stone stacks. Building has a T-plan with eighteenth century extension to the right which has been connected in turn to a former ancillary building. Nineteenth century addition to rear left. All main windows are stone mullioned with chamfered jambs. To the right the former ancillary building presents a gable to the front and has twentieth century stone mullioned windows to match those of the original range.

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 282 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘(43) Beech House, of two storeys with attics and cellar, has rubble walls with ashlar dressings, and slated roofs. The house, originally with a T-shaped plan, is of the 17th century; in the 18th century it was extended to the E., and the S. porch was built; early in the 19th century an additional ground-floor room was built on the N.W.
The S. front has four bays; the E. bay is of the 18th century and the central bay of the original range is masked by the 18th-century porch, which is of two storeys with an attic. The doorway in the S. side of the porch is square-headed with a moulded and eared architrave; above, on the first floor and in the gabled attic, are square-headed two-light casement windows. The other bays of the S. front have uniform square-headed casement windows of three lights with chamfered jambs and mullions; those of the ground floor have weathered labels with returned stops. A vertical joint shows the extent of the original three-bay house. The gabled W. wall has three-light casement windows, as before, in the ground and first storeys. The N. wing, gabled to the N., has three-light casement windows on ground, first and attic storeys. The eastern part of the S. range is masked on the N. by outbuildings; the 19th-century N.W. room is of ashlar, with a flat roof behind a parapet. Inside, the house has been much altered and modernised. The E. room of the original range has one ceiling beam, cased and enriched with plaster mouldings; the 18th-century E. room has two beams with narrow chamfers; several first-floor rooms have exposed ceiling beams and one of these, in the N. wing, is chamfered and has splayed stops.’

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 3:14PM