Pull Court,Screen,Archway And Gates

SO 83 NE BUSHLEY PULL COURT 2/13 25-3-68 Pull Court (formerly listed as Brendon GV School), Screen, Archway and gates II*

Country house 1834-9 by E Blore for Canon E C Dowdeswell. Limestone ashlar with coursed blue lias stone in entrance court. Slate roofs. Tall clustered stone stacks, now truncated. Elizabethan/Jacobean style, 2 storey and attic, U plan around rear entrance court. Mullion and transom windows throughout, eaves dormers with shaped ogee gables rising from balustraded parapet. Most of balustrade and dormer finials have been removed. Symmetrical South, garden, front of 5 window range with projecting tower like central feature: square angle turrets terminating in stone ogee caps and flanking an elaborate shaped attic dormer. 4-light ground and 1st floor windows. String course across whole front at 1st floor. One window range each side with 3-light windows, hood-moulds over 1st floor. Outer bays project slightly and have large shaped gables with finials, large 2 storey 3-sided bays with stone panels over 1st floor. Balustrade missing. 3-light attic windows, the centre light higher with shield over. The West side is similar, 3 window range with gables flanking a centre section. Attached at left is blue lias stone service range of 2 storeys, the three 1st floor windows with damaged stone shaped gables. 3 ground floor windows, 3-light, 3-light and 5-light. North entrance court has limestone centrepiece with tall shaped gable over 6-light mullion and transom attic window. Dowdeswell arms carved at first floor and elaborate arched carved doorway with double doors. Each side is a full-height hall window of 12 lights with panelled parapet and outer thin square turret rising to stone ogee cap. To each side blue lias stone 2 window range, 3-light and single light windows. Dormers over 3-light windows. This section returns each side with single light and 2-light windows. Shaped coped gables one with truncated end wall stack. From these extend 2 storey service wings also with shaped North end gables, 4 window range to East, 3 windows to West. Shaped gables over upper windows. Enclosing courtyard is stone screen. Screen walls with narrow arched openings between piers. Stone coping. Fine central archway, stone piers framing arch with ornamented keystone and moulding over spandrels. Panelled frieze and heave stepped top with central block carved with seahorse motif and carrying a carved griffin head. Elaborate Jacobean style iron gates. Service court on East side of lesser interest. Interior has full-height hall with ashlar walls and flat timber roof. Gallery on 2 sides and large timber stairs set to left. Jacobean detail throughout. Library and one other ground floor room with Jacobean style decoration.

Listing NGR: SO8621736086