Beckford Hall

BECKFORD CP MAIN STREET (north side) SO 9635 - 9735 13/46 12/2 Beckford Hall 30-7-59 GV II

Priory, rebuilt as house, now divided into five dwellings. Circa 1128, rebuilt early C17, altered and extended mid-C19. Coursed dressed limestone rubble and limestone ashlar with ashlar dressings. Plain tiled, multi-gabled roof behind parapet with large ashlar stacks to rear of main ridge. Two storeys, attic and cellar with dripmoulds. Seven bays. Windows on main floors are all 3-light chamfered mullion and transom type. Attic storey has seven gabled dormers with parapets, 2-light mullioned windows and hood moulds. There are skylights between each dormer. Central gabled porch with tall parapet and ornate corner finials. It has a moulded plinth and a central doorway with a 4-centred head, moulded relief decoration in the spandrels and flanking rectangular leaded lights. Above the doorway set in the parapet is an inscription panel with a strapwork surround and surmounted by a pediment formed by the gable apex of the roof. On the panel is written "NISI: CRUCE: MUNIT: HOMO:/ NULLA: SOLUS: EST: IN: DOMO". There is a relief of a cross on the shield contained within the pediment. The side elevations of the porch have large rectangular lights and the porch is approached by a flight of six steps. There is a C19 addition to the left side of three storeys with a moulded eaves cornice and two bays. The left bay projects as a shallow full-height gabled wing and has a 5-light mullioned window on each floor, the ground floor window having two transoms and the upper storey windows having a single transom. There are rectangular lights on each floor in the angle with the main part. The right bay also has a rectangular light on each floor (two on the first floor). The building has extensive additions to the rear, mainly of C19 date and similarly detailed. The south elevation incorporates a central square tower with an embattled parapet and oriel window on the first floor. There is a former C19 chapel to the north-east side of the building which has large pointed windows with Perpendicular tracery; at its north gable end there is a figure of a bishop (?) set within an ogee-arched, crocketted and finialed niche flanked by slender pilaster buttresses with crocketted pinnacles. Interior: there is a large open well staircase with turned balusters and ornate foliated carving to the rear of the main C17 range. The south-east end of the building is said to be built above the C12 vaulted crypt and a ground floor room also in this part of the building is said to have an elaborately carved ceiling with naturalistic detailing. The chapel is said to retain its painted ceiling. The house stands on the site of a priory of Augustinian canons founded in 1128. In the C16 it became the seat of the Wakeman family and was completely rebuilt. During the C20 it was used as a theological college until 1975. (BoE, p 77).

Listing NGR: SO9765235917