Kingham House

Kingham House

Kingham House is a rectory, now a private dwelling, built circa 1688 for Reverend William Dowdeswell, rector of Kingham. It has undergone minor later additions and alterations.

The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with a hipped stone slate roof in two sections to the rear, featuring a wooden modillion eaves cornice. It rises to two storeys and an attic, with a floor band and semi-basement with moulded plinth. The front elevation has five bays.

The main façade displays 18-paned glazing bar sashes in moulded architraves at ground and first floor levels. The semi-basement contains five two-light mullion windows, the second from the left without a mullion. The central entrance is a 6-panel door with a decorative rectangular overlight in a moulded architrave, approached by a straight flight of nine steps with turned balusters and ball finials to the top. Above the door is a head of a winged angel and a segmental pediment broken by the Dowdeswell coat-of-arms. Three gabled dormers sit symmetrically placed in the bottom of the roof slope.

The left return features windows to its far left and right (the latter blind) and three two-light chamfered mullion windows on a chamfered rubblestone plinth, with the rightmost infilled. The right return, in three bays, has a small rusticated stack in the bottom of the roof slope to the left, and a two-storey 19th-century lean-to and other lean-tos abutting it.

The rear elevation is in five bays with 18-paned glazing bar sashes in moulded architraves. Two on the ground floor to the left are infilled and replaced by a mid-19th-century tripartite window made up from the original architraves with a French casement to the centre. A central Tudor-style porch, dating to circa 1853, has coped verges and three ball finials, and features a moulded round-headed outer arch with hoodmould and moulded rectangular windows to its sides. Half-glazed leaded double doors sit in a late 17th-century moulded surround with entablature, and the outline of the original segmental pediment is visible above the porch. The roof slopes contain gabled dormers with rusticated ashlar ridge stacks to both sections.

Interior

The left ground-floor room (now a drawing room, formerly the dining room) retains almost complete original raised and fielded bevelled panelling with cornice. A contemporary carved chimney piece to the back wall formerly had reused Jacobean panelling with the date "1688" above. A 6-panel door leads to the central passageway, also with raised and fielded bevelled panelling. Double doors with a plastered surround and semi-circular fanlight, dating to circa 1853, provide access to the rear. A 6-panel door to the right of the passage leads to the right room, which has a fluted frieze and dado panelling. Two 18th-century inset round-headed cupboards with pilastered surrounds and elliptical arches occupy the back wall of the right room, with the left blind and the right containing a 19th-century glazed door. A marble fireplace sits at the centre.

An open-well staircase of circa 1770 in the hall to the rear of the passage features a wreathed and ramped handrail with circular fluted newels and slender turned balusters (three to each tread). The open string is carved with St. Andrew's cross, concave lozenge and Greek-keylike ornament, and the ramped dado has fluted pilasters. The hall cornice features rosette emblems and egg and dart moulding. A round-headed pilastered doorway to the back wall, off-centre with the front door, provides access to a small rear room.

A small room in the rear left corner off the hall retains original raised and fielded panelling and a bolection-moulded corner fireplace. The room to the rear right corner, now the kitchen but formerly a reception room, has a plaster cornice. Oak floorboards run throughout the ground floor, with those in the central passage and staircase hall bearing late 20th-century painted diamond patterns.

The first floor landing frieze features festooned garlands with rosette emblems above. Panelled doors with panelled reveals and fluted heads lead to bedrooms. Several bedrooms are subdivided but retain original plaster cornices and dado panelling. The front right room has a more elaborate cornice and a round-headed arch in the right wall (now infilled but originally forming a bed alcove) with consoled keystone and square-headed panelled doors with moulded entablatures to either side. A carved fireplace surround occupies the back wall. The rear left room has stripped pine panelling (raised and fielded) with cornice and a mid-19th-century Tudor Gothic fireplace. Panelled window shutters appear throughout the ground and first floors.

The attic, reached through back stairs with late 17th-century turned balusters at the top in the rear right corner of the house, contains several original plank and panelled doors and a late 17th-century stone fireplace.

The semi-basement, accessed by stone steps immediately below the main staircase, has stone-flag floors and plank and panelled doors. The original kitchen features a massive infilled inglenook fireplace. A corner fireplace below the rear left room has an infilled cambered arch. Large barrel-vaulted cellars extend below the lawn to the rear.

Historical context

The chancel of the adjacent Church of St. Andrew was rebuilt in 1688 for Reverend William Dowdeswell, and the mid-19th-century work in the house was carried out at the same date and in the same style as the restoration of the church.