Agents House Sarsden Estate

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SP22SE 7/197

SARSDEN Sarsden Estate Agents House

(Formerly listed as Old Rectory (estate office))

GV II

Early C19 house, probably incorporating parts of an earlier building; later additions and alterations. Roughly coursed limestone rubble; stone slate roofs. Double-depth plan. Two storeys and attic. Road side has three glazing bar sashes to left and tripartite sash to right on first floor, all with wedged voussoirs. Tripartite sashes to left and right on ground floor with similar voussoirs and two glazing bar sashes roughly to centre, left in position of infilled doorway with plain stone surround. Three gabled dormers in middle of roof slope. Integral end stacks with moulded dripstone and capping, right with shaft rebuilt C20, Cellar to left lit by two-light ovolo-moulded mullion window. Low C19 L-shaped service range attached to right at junction with parallel rear range. This has former entrance front (course of road has moved) in three bays; glazing bar sashes in plain stone surrounds. Central entrance; six-panel door (upper panels now glazed) with wreathed and radiating fanlight under C19 flat-roofed wooden porch with curved braces and trefoils to spandrels. Three gabled dormers as on road side. Integral end stacks with moulded dripstones and capping.

Interior. Inspection not possible at time of resurvey (August 1987) but rear range noted as having early C19 dog-leg staircase with stick balusters to open string, wreathed and ramped handrail and circular bottom newel. Panelled window shutters.

It has been suggested that this building is the 'staring house', which Humphry Repton in his Red Book (c.1796) for John Langston, owner of Sarsden House (q.v.), proposed should be screened by trees. The building shown in the Red Book, however, has a hipped roof. While it is possible that the present double-span gabled roof may be a C19 remodelling, the house is situated too far west to be the building depicted in the Red Book, which is shown immediately next to the stables (q.v.) of Sarsden House, which are in fact some distance to the west. A building on the site and another near the stables (marked as Farmhouse and The Pigeon House) respectively are shown on estate maps of 1788 and 1795. The Pigeon House (now demolished) is more likely to be the 'staring house' referred to by Repton.

(Nigel Temple: 'Sarsden, Oxfordshire'; Journal of Garden History: Vol.6, No.2 (1986)

[2647]

Listing NGR: SP2874022965