Sarsden Glebe With Attached Service Ranges, Stable Block And Outbuildings

Sarsden Glebe with attached service ranges, stable block and outbuildings

Rectory, now house and flats. Built in 1818 by G.S. Repton for James Haughton Langston of Sarsden House for the use of his brother-in-law, Reverend Charles Barter, rector of Churchill-cum-Sarsden. The building was enlarged and given a second floor in 1834, with minor later additions and alterations.

The main structure is constructed in limestone ashlar with low pitched hipped slate roofs featuring deep eaves. The building forms a basic U-plan that includes service ranges, with an L-shaped stable block to the rear on the left and a further L-shaped range of outbuildings behind that. The house rises to three storeys with a floor band between the first and second floors.

The main 3-bay range has a projecting bay to the right. The windows are glazing bar sashes: the left and centre bays have 9-paned sashes on the first floor, while the right bay has 6-paned sashes; the second floor has all 6-paned sashes. The projecting bay features a 6-paned glazing bar sash to the second floor, with three 8-paned sashes grouped together in an ovolo-moulded wood surround on the ground floor and three 6-paned sashes similarly grouped on the first floor.

A loggia in the left angle, continued to the left return, is supported on wood posts with thin curved brackets. It features a canted bay window with five 8-paned glazing bar sashes below to the left and a 12-paned glazing bar sash below to the right. The loggia roof projects above the canted bay window and supports a balcony with iron railings, approached through the left and centre windows on the first floor.

The left return has three bays with glazing bar sashes to the first and second floors, including dummy sashes to the upper right and centre on both floors. A tall glazing bar sash stands to the right under the loggia, and another to the left has a panelled extension to the bottom forming a French window. The right return has an external lateral stack to the left, its top rebuilt in later 19th-century yellow brick.

A flat-roofed porch to the right features a moulded entablature and round-headed outer arch with a projecting keystone. The inner door is a 4-panel double door with vertical side-lights and an elegant wreathed and radiating fanlight.

Contemporary hip-roofed service ranges are attached to the rear of the returns. The single-storey hip-roofed stable block with coach house to the north range is matched by a similar L-shaped range of outbuildings attached to its rear, both grouped around small courtyards.

Interior

The right ground-floor room (dining room) has a plaster cornice comprising a repeating corded motif with leaf decoration wrapped round. A marble fireplace surround stands to the right, and a pilastered doorcase with 4-panel doors is positioned on the back wall. Large 4-panel double doors to the left lead to a central passage with a shallow elliptical groined vault and elliptical arched recesses to the sides. A similar doorway and doors to the left room (drawing room) features a marble fireplace surround and plaster cornice matching that in the dining room.

The stone-flagged hall behind the passage contains an open-well staircase lit by a rectangular lantern. The staircase has a ramped wreathed handrail, circular newels and stick balusters—three to each tread—to a carved open string. First-floor rooms have simple plaster cornices. The stable block retains early 19th-century loose-boxes with iron grilles and wood doors.

The house was built at a cost of £5,000. Much of the interior decoration is similar to that at the slightly later Dower House, also by Repton, situated a short distance away. Undated drawings of the house attributed to Repton are held in the RIBA drawings collection.