Listed Building record MDO23163 - Canford School, Canford Magna

Large country house, now boarding school. 1825-36, extended 1848-1853 and 1888, with twentieth century alterations. By Edward Blore, for William Ponsonby, Lord de Mauley. Partly remodelled and considerably extended 1848-1853 by Sir Charles Barry for Sir John and Lady Charlotte Guest. Altered 1873-6 by David Brandon and further extended 1888 by Romaine Walker and Tanner. Built in white brick in Flemish bond with Portland and Bath limestone dressings, slate roofs and white brick internal stacks.

The manor of Canford is mentioned in Domesday, and for much of the Medieval period was the property of the earls of Salisbury. The manor had a number of owners from the mid-15th century onwards, and the house became a school in 1923.

The original manor house lay to the east of the present building and was largely demolished in 1765. The only part not destroyed was a Medieval range known as John O'Gaunt's kitchen. There seems to be no historical justification for the name. <1-2>

The remains of the Manor House incorporated in Canford School are still called John O'Gaunt's kitchen. The surviving building was the Tudor kitchen of the Manor House and formed the south-west wing of the pre- 1765 building. No other remains are visible.

The kitchen is now in use as a Library, and is in good condition but has some modern renovations. The corners of the west end of the block are re-inforced with modern brick and the mullioned windows on the north side of the building have been renewed or replaced by modern stone mullions. The roof is of tiles. See ground photographs. <4>

Canford School, formerly listed as Canford Manor. Canford Manor stands on the site of a building first mentioned in 1221; only the 14th - 15th century kitchen wing, known as John of Gaunt's kitchen, remains. The pre-1765 house was a gabled structure, probably dating from 1611. The house was completely rebuilt in 1825-36 for Lord de Manley to a design by Edward Blore. Considerable alterations were carried out in 1847. by Barry. The main house is of two storeys with attics and towers rising to four storeys, built of brick with slate roofs. Full architectural descriptions. <5>

<1> Shipp, W, and Hodson, J W (eds), 1861, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. 3rd edition. Volume 1, 295-300 (Monograph). SWX4496.

<2> 193, Canford School, Wimborne (Monograph). SDO19825.

<3> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1938 (Map). SWX1540.

(SZ 03359891) Canford School (NAT)

<4> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 14-NOV-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 209-212 (Monograph). SDO149.

‘(30) CANFORD MANOR (Plates 137, 156), immediately E. of Canford church, stands on the site of a building referred to in 1221 when it was owned by William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury. The only mediaeval part now remaining is the kitchen wing ('John of Gaunt's kitchen') which dates from the 14th and 15th centuries. According to Hutchins other outbuildings also survived until 1765; these lay immediately N. and E. of the kitchen. The house, which in the 18th century stood to the S., was a gabled structure probably dating from 1611 when the Webb family became owners of the property. This house was completely rebuilt in 1825–36 for the Hon. W. F. Spencer Ponsonby, afterwards Lord de Mauley, who had married the heiress to the Webb property in 1814. The architect for the new work was Edward Blore who designed a larger mansion in the mid-Tudor style, some parts of which remain, particularly in the S. and E. fronts of the present building. In 1846 the property passed by sale to Sir Josiah John Guest, and the following year he called in Charles Barry to make considerable alterations and extensions to the house; much of the present building is of this period.
It is not possible to distinguish the work of Blore from that of Barry in every particular since Barry continued the style already adopted by his predecessor, but his work tends towards greater elaboration. Existing drawings include two perspectives by Blore now in the R.I.B.A, collection which show S.E. and S.W. views of the house including the central features on the S. side largely as they exist today, but the other parts of the façades were evidently altered by Blore before the work was completed, or later by Barry. An extensive set of plans in the Dorchester County Record Office signed by Charles Barry and dated 7 April 1848 shows his proposed alterations. The plans indicate that, of the ground-floor rooms, the walls of the Hall and all rooms to the S., E., and W. of it were to be retained as well as the E. and W. walls of the entrance gallery and the E. wall of the House Court and some walling N. of the principal stair. They also show as existing a conservatory set on the axis of the E. porch of the Dining Room. The proposed new work comprised the Victoria Tower and buildings around the House Court. All these proposals were realised, and additions continued to be made in the later 19th century, notably the building in 1851 of the Nineveh Court, E. of the kitchen, to house the Assyrian antiquities collected by Sir Henry Layard, son-in-law of Sir John Guest. A plan published by the Rev. Alfred Barry in 1867 (fn. 6) shows the house largely as it is today but with a conservatory immediately S. of 'John of Gaunt's kitchen'; this has since been replaced by a screen wall around a service yard.
The principal staircase was rebuilt after a fire in 1885 and in 1887 a wing was added to accommodate a smoking room and billiard room W. of the Victoria Tower. In 1923 the house was converted for use as a boys' public school.
Architectural Description—The Kitchen Wing (82 ft. by 20 ft. internally) is a single-storey building (Plate 137) with walls of coursed and squared limestone rubble with carstone at head and base, and with ashlar chimneystacks and a tiled roof with a verge of stone slates to the S. The S. wall has a moulded external cornice with 15th-century grotesques. The building is divided into two unequal rooms by a large double chimney-stack in addition to which each room also has a fireplace and chimney-stack in the N. wall. The building was heightened and a first floor inserted in the 16th century, but the floor was later removed. The E. wall, which formed part of an earlier building to the E., is 14th-century and has diagonal buttresses to N. and S., the former now largely cut away. In the middle of the wall is an original doorway, now opening outwards, with a two-centred head in two orders, the outer order chamfered, the inner moulded, and a segmental-pointed rear arch. N. of the doorway at a higher level is a later blocked opening, and, at the top of the wall, a 14th-century window facing W. with ogee trefoiled head and chamfered jambs. The N. wall of the E. room has at the E. end a 15th-century doorway, now converted to a cupboard, with four-centred head, continuously moulded jambs with shaped stops and four-centred rear arch; above it is a 16th-century two-light mullioned and transomed window rebated for shutters. W. of this is a 15th-century fireplace with moulded segmental-pointed head, projecting external chimneybreast and a stack, rebuilt in the early 16th century, with a rectangular shaft and a plain rectangular opening at the top of each face, with moulded and embattled capping. In the S. wall of the E. room are two two-light 16th-century windows originally similar to that in the N. wall but with sills deepened at a later date. The W. wall has a 15th-century fireplace with a moulded segmental-pointed head rounded on to the jambs; S. of this is a contemporary doorway with moulded four-centred head leading to the W. room and above it a rough modern opening. The roof of this room is in two bays with wind-braces and a tie-beam roof-truss with arch-braced collar beam.
The western room is approached from the E. through a vaulted passage to the S. of the fireplace; the passage has a single-light window in the S. wall and at the W. end a four-centred arch. Above the passage is an upper chamber probably of the 16th century entered from the W. through a doorway with four-centred head; in the N. wall is a chamfered square-headed recess with an old lead pipe embedded in the walling and opening out of the bottom of the recess. At a height of about 10 ft. a slight set-back in the wall face marks the line of the former roof.
N. of the passage in the E. wall of the W. room is a fireplace with segmental-pointed head. On the N. side of the fireplace at first-floor level is a small vaulted chamber entered from the W. through a doorway with four-centred head; the chamber is lit by a small square-headed window in the N. wall. The N. wall of the W. room has a fireplace 20 ft. wide with segmental-pointed head; to the W. is a doorway with four-centred head, continuously moulded jambs, and segmental-pointed rear arch, and at the W. end is a 16th-century three-light window above which is a contemporary transomed window of two lights. The S. wall has two two-light windows similar to those in the E. room and W. of them a blocked doorway with segmental-pointed rear arch. At the W. end of the wall at first-floor level is the E. jamb of a blocked 16th-century doorway. In the W. wall is a doorway with four-centred rear arch. The roof of the W. room (Plate 123) is in four bays with a narrow fifth bay at the W. end, with wind-braces and four 15th century roof-trusses with collars and tie beams, and wall posts springing from stone corbels.
About 30 yds. N.E. of the kitchen is a mediaeval drain outflow in the river bank. This is about 3 ft. high and has a two-centred arch. The drain extends about 20 yds. S. and terminates in a blocked round-headed doorway.
The House is principally of two storeys and attics with towers rising to four storeys. The walls are of gault brickwork with stone dressings and the roofs are covered with slates. The S. front (Plate 137) has near the middle a three-storey semi-octagonal bay with battlemented parapet of c. 1825 marking the former entrance, and W. of it a four-storey octagonal tower of similar date. The walls E. of the bay and the E. return wall appear to be of this date, but the private apartments to the W. are more elaborate in detail and are a reconstruction by Barry of 1876 and earlier. They are marked on the plan published by Rev. A. Barry (1867) as 'Lady Charlotte's room' to the E. and 'Sir John's room' to the W. Sometime after the death of Sir John Guest in 1852 the latter was altered to form a boudoir and ornamented with rococo panelling with a frieze above; only the frieze now survives. Possibly at the same time the E. room was embellished with reused panelling and a timber fireplace surround partly of 19th-century work but with an older upper part dated 1625; this last, which has a central panel containing a royal arms and flanked by round-headed panels divided by Corinthian columns, was brought from a house near Salisbury. (fn. 7) The doors, door-frames and dado of this room incorporate elaborately carved late 15th and early 16th-century panels of English and French workmanship including representations of St. John the Baptist, St. Barbara, St. Michael the Archangel, and the arms of France modern and the Dauphin. Other carved panels, including some in the former smoking room, are of late 17th or 18th-century date and are said to have come from Prague. (fn. 8)
The lofty Hall (61 ft. by 36 ft.) in the S. block, originally approached from the entrance vestibule, later the drawing room, through a doorway at the W. end of its S. wall, was rebuilt c. 1850. It is lit by windows high in the E. and W. gable walls, each of seven cinque-foiled lights with vertical tracery in a four-centred head; each window is blind below a transom and has in the lower part a series of seven cinque-foiled ogee-headed niches originally empty but now filled with full-length historical figures in mosaic. The main lights of the W. window contain fourteen shields-of-arms in stained and painted glass by Hardman, executed in 1850; other glass from this workshop was in the E. window, and the N. window of the staircase, but has since been replaced, the former in 1931 and the latter c. 1885. The roof, in five bays, is supported by six arched-braced trusses springing from carved stone corbels, with wind braces below the purlins and curved braces below a moulded cornice, all with elaborate painted and gilded enrichment. The Drawing Room, S. of the hall, has a flat plaster ceiling with painted decoration of ornamental panels and swags in the Roman manner.
The Entrance Gallery or long gallery evidently existed in some form prior to Barry's alterations but he transformed it into an elaborate corridor between the Victoria Tower and the garden porch which serves as an ante-room to the hall. The plaster ceiling is elaborated with a geometrical pattern of moulded ribs. A fireplace is shown in the 1848 drawings in the W. wall opposite the position of the present fireplace; the latter is richly carved Italian work with enriched brackets and a tapered hood of the late 15th century. The Victoria Tower (Plate 156) has an octagonal stair projection at the S.E. corner which rises above the rest as a battlemented turret; the other angles are masked by square projections capped by lower turrets. In the N., E. and W. faces of the lower stage are four-centred arches with quatre-foiled tracery in the spandrels and surmounted by shields-of-arms, above which are three heights of three-light mullioned windows with shields-of-arms below the upper two and cinque-foiled heads and vertical tracery to the topmost window on each side. The Bell Tower at the N.E. corner of the house next to the kitchen, square on plan, has sculptured animals carrying banners at the corners; the tower is crowned by an octagonal belfry with cinque-foiled lights and a shaped octagonal dome in two stages. The belfry contains a bell by Peter Vanden Ghein with an inscription in Flemish and the date 1592. Nineveh Court, built in 1851, is planned as a Greek cross with gabled arms and porch with two-centred Gothic arch to the S. The outer doors are of timber covered on both faces by an ornamental cast-iron grille. The windows, each of three lights with vertical tracery, are designed in a 15th-century style and contain coloured glass of c. 1851 with formalised patterns partly of eastern derivation. The floor is covered with encaustic tiles; these and the grilles to the doors are decorated with Assyrian motifs.
The Stables and Coach-houses, partly rebuilt in 1963, lie S.W. of the house around a rectangular courtyard. The Lodge N.W. of the house, with arched entrance, bell turret on the N. and lodge-keeper's cottage on the S., was built c. 1850 and later extended to the S. South Lodge, 1,040 yds. S. of the house, was built in 1850 and has a shield with this date in the W. gable and a shield-of-arms in the original E. gable; the lodge was at first of two rooms but was doubled in size by additions to the N. in the late 19th century. S.E. of South Lodge are a pair of stone gate piers and three pairs of wrought-iron gates with intermediate wrought-iron standards and scrolled overthrows of the late 18th century. They were removed from a site nearer the house in 1936.’

<6> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BF097429 (Index). SDO14738.

CANFORD SCHOOL, CANFORD MAGNA, POOLE

<7> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08680 (Index). SDO14738.

The Great Hall at Canford Manor, looking towards the ornate stained glass window. Canford Manor was built in 1825-1836 by Edward Blore for William Ponsonby, Lord de Mauley. Later extensions and alterations were made by Sir Charles Barry Jnr in 1848-1853, by David Brandon in 1873-1876, and by Romaine Walker and Tanner in 1888. In the twentieth century it was converted into a boarding school. The image is one of a set of Canford Manor taken for Lord Wimborne.

<8> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08681 (Index). SDO14738.

Interior view looking along the Long Gallery at Canford Manor

<9> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08682 (Index). SDO14738.

The Great Hall at Canford Manor, looking towards a Tudor arched doorway leading to a flight of stairs

<10> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08685 (Index). SDO14738.

Interior view of the boudoir at Canford Manor, with the fireplace to the left

<11> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08686 (Index). SDO14738.

Interior view of the boudoir at Canford Manor, looking towards the window

<12> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08687 (Index). SDO14738.

The fireplace in Lord Wimborne's room at Canford Manor

<13> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08690 (Index). SDO14738.

Exterior view of Canford Manor from the south-east

<14> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08691 (Index). SDO14738.

General view looking across the grounds towards the south front of Canford Manor

<15> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BL08692 (Index). SDO14738.

General view from the south-west looking across the grounds towards Canford Manor

<16> Historic England, Historic England Archive, OP10405 (Index). SDO14738.

Canford House and its formal gardens were built in their current form in the early 19th century, although parts of the site have been habited since the 14th century. In 1923 Canford House was sold and became Canford School.

<17> National Record of the Historic Environment, 457963 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 10 2023 4:38PM