Abbey House With Attached 5 Bay Arcade, Incorporating Dovecote

Abbey House with Attached 5-Bay Arcade, Incorporating Dovecote

A substantial medieval building of exceptional interest, originally the abbot's lodgings and infirmary of Buildwas Abbey, later converted to a farmhouse and small country house, now used as a private club house. The building dates from the 13th and 14th centuries, was remodelled in the 16th and 17th centuries, and underwent considerable additions and alterations in the second half of the 19th century.

The structure is built of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and plain tile roofs with stone ridge and end stacks. It is arranged in two storeys with attics across its various components.

The earliest part, located to the west, comprises a first-floor hall aligned north to south, positioned above a vaulted undercroft. A late 14th-century parlour wing extends at right angles to the south. To the east lies a 5-bay range that was considerably altered around 1850. Further 19th-century additions in a medieval style occupy the north-east angle, with service ranges added to the parlour wing.

The first-floor hall features three 19th-century paired lancet windows and one single lancet to the first floor, with a slightly pointed moulded doorway to the right. The ground floor contains a round-headed arch with jamb shafts (late 12th or early 13th century) to the right of centre, alongside the blocked remains of a larger arch. A 19th-century segmental brick arch occupies the centre, with one 16th-century and one 15th-century window to the left. The far left has a doorway with a carved tympanum, possibly reset. The left gable end is timber-framed to its apex, with 19th-century lancets and blocked openings below. The right gable end contains an original paired lancet with cusped trefoil opening above and a single lancet to the east.

An arcade of four cusped lancets linked by a continuous hoodmould (partly destroyed by 20th-century fenestration) extends from the gable end into the first bay of the 5-bay range projecting eastward. The pointed arcade of this range is now blocked and fitted with 20th-century casements in stone surrounds; the first floor is surmounted by 19th-century trefoil and quatrefoil openings. A prominent early 20th-century canted bay window projects from the left on the ground floor. The centre has a doorway with a blocked lancet and a narrow trefoil-headed doorway to the right. The gable end displays a prominent 19th-century oriel.

The 19th-century additions to the north include a twin-gabled range with a rectangular tower behind and a lean-to projection forming an entrance passageway.

The parlour wing has a blocked doorway to the left and two segmental openings to the centre, one with a foliated boss, with a further blocked doorway to the right. Three-light late 19th-century leaded casements with segmental heads and a gabled dormer occupy the roof slope to the left. The gable end has coped verges supported on moulded corbels at the corners and an arrangement of statue niches to the centre, with the principal niche resting on a carved stone head. Below this is a hatched opening, and on the ground floor a wide 19th-century segmental arch with 20th-century folding glass doors.

Attached to the north-west corner of the house is a remarkably important 5-bay arcade of early 13th-century date, comprising pointed arches on short circular piers aligned east to west. The two western arches are now blocked. A gabled brick dovecote (probably 16th or 17th century) protrudes between the third and fourth bays from the east. The dovecote is built of pinkish-brown brick on a coursed limestone plinth, its top heightened in 19th-century red brick, with a plain tile roof. A round-headed doorway on its south side, possibly of monastic origin, is now incorporated in a mid-19th-century stone lean-to of no special architectural interest. The arcade probably formed part of the north range of the infirmary court of Buildwas Abbey.

Interior

The interior has been considerably altered in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first-floor hall features a pointed doorway with dogtooth ornament at its south end and decorated corbels that formerly supported the roof structure. A round-headed arch with jamb shafts at the east end of the 5-bay projection (possibly reset) contains a recessed doorway with a shouldered arch. The ground floor of this range displays a fine late 16th-century plaster ceiling, comparable to that at Belswardyne Hall and the plasterwork at Old Hall, Hughley. The parlour wing has an arch-braced collar beam roof in seven short bays with cusped windbraces. The roof of the first-floor hall dates from the 16th century or later, but the tie beams of an earlier roof have been reversed and reused in its construction.

A detailed inspection of the interior was not possible at the time of re-survey in 1985, and the building merits fuller study and interpretation.