Listed Building record MDO5446 - Court House, Corfe Mullen

The surviving wing of a large late sixteenth-century house, with mid nineteenth century alterations and extensions at the north end. Built of ironstone ashlar in large blocks, with later walling of ironstone rubble, both sections with limestone dressings.

Court House, Corfe Mullen is a short rectangular-shaped building of two storeys and attics with walls of carstone and ashlar in differing depths of courses. The building is a fragment of a larger house built in the latter part of the 16th century, probably by the Philips family; the bulk of the original house being demolished in the mid 19th century. <2>

Court House is a small two-storeyed rectangle, gabled at the short ends, and seems to be part of a manor house once owned by the Philips family. <3>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1970 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 97579860) Court House (NR)

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 102-103 (Monograph). SDO148.

'(2) COURT HOUSE (250 yds. N.) is of two storeys with attics (Plate 92). The walls are of carstone and local limestone ashlar in differing depths of courses; the roofs are covered with stone slates and tiles. The building is a fragment, perhaps a wing, of a larger house built in the latter part of the 16th century, probably by the Phelips family who had owned the property since earlier in the century. The bulk of the house was demolished in the middle of the 19th century. The part left standing was then made into a house by enclosing the N. end with a new wall with a small single-storey extension beyond, the insertion of some new windows and the installation of an old staircase.

Court House is of note for the elaborate late Tudor plaster ceilings it contains.

The house is a short rectangle on plan, gabled to the N. and S. and with end chimneystacks. The E. side has a moulded string at first-floor level returned from the S. and W. faces of the house but stopping about a quarter of the way along; the wall further N. has patching and the last 6 ft., to the full height, is rebuilt. Below the string is an ovolo-moulded stone-mullioned and transomed window of four lights and above, on the first floor, a three-sided oriel window on original chamfered stone corbelling but for the rest largely reconstructed. The other transomed window on the ground floor, of two lights, is old but reset, the doorway is an insertion and the two two-light windows above are of the mid 19th century. The W. side has some walling in alternate bands of brown and grey stone and a string-course as described above; again, the N. 6 ft. is rebuilt. On the ground floor are transomed windows similar to those to the E. and on the first floor are two three-light windows, also ovolo-moulded, under moulded labels. The N. end wall, including the stack with diagonal shafts, is a building or rebuilding of the mid 19th century. The S. end has the first-floor string continued round the projecting stack. This last, which is of stone as high as the line of the eaves and rebuilt in brick above, has 19th-century or modern buttressing. The gable has a plain coping. The windows flanking the stack are of one and two lights with labels.
Inside, the S. ground-floor room has an original plaster ceiling (Plate 92) divided into four by plastered intersecting beams with running vine scrolls on the soffits and a foliated pendant at the intersection. In each quarter is a geometrical pattern of moulded ribs with leaf and flower ornament in low relief and a central pendant. Round the wall-head is a deep frieze of scrolling briar. On the window soffits are geometrical arabesques. The fireplace has moulded stone jambs to a four-centred arch in a square head with sunk spandrels. The 17th-century staircase reset from elsewhere has turned balusters, a moulded handrail and square newels with turned finials. The S. room on the first floor has an original plaster ceiling with a geometrical pattern over all, of moulded ribs with bosses at some intersections and enclosing daisies, thistles, fig branches, stylised strawberry tendrils, and slipped Tudor roses under closed crowns. The soffit of the oriel window is enriched with a simple arabesque pattern and has a foliate frieze. The panelling in this room is of the 18th century, restored.'

<3> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 169 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 457120 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 5 2022 12:02PM