Pugin Hall

Pugin Hall is a former rectory, now a private house, built in 1846–7 by the renowned Victorian architect A.W.N. Pugin. It was commissioned by the Reverend F.W. Rooke, Rector of Rampisham with Wraxall, to replace an earlier parsonage considered dilapidated and beyond repair. The building represents one of Pugin's most complete and carefully preserved domestic designs.

The house is principally two storeys with an attic, constructed of coursed rubble stone with freestone dressings. The steeply pitched clay tile roof features stone copings, decorative kneelers, and clustered groups of tall octagonal stone stacks with embattled cornices. The rafters end in hollow-moulding and a chamfered stone band runs beneath the eaves. All windows retain their original iron casements, some with leaded lights, and external doors preserve their original ironmongery.

The plan is fairly compact but asymmetrical. The principal rooms form an L-shaped arrangement, with an attached two-storey service wing of three bays to the rear, and a smaller single-storey range of one bay beyond.

The south-west garden front features a chamfered stone plinth and moulded band between floors. It comprises a large two-storey canted bay, gabled at full height, with a small mullioned window above. The two right-hand bays contain two 3-light transomed stone mullioned windows to both floors and a dormer. The south-east entrance elevation is characteristically asymmetrical, beginning with a double gable to the left that has a large projecting stack. A shield carved with the Reverend Rooke's initial is inset into the stack embrasure. To the right, beneath the rear gable, stands a pointed-arch porch entrance with ovolo-moulded jambs and a stepped label with lozenge stops. Above the entrance, a shield contains a carving of the Virgin and Child. The inner doorway has moulded jambs and a square head, retaining its mid-19th-century planked door. At first floor, above the entrance, is a 2-light trefoil-cusped window with quatrefoil roundel, which lights a room originally used as an oratory—emphasising the ecclesiastical purpose of the building. Beyond the gables, the walls step back in stages, the lower service wing occupying the right-hand three bays and a further single-storey bay beyond. The central section is dominated by a mullioned and transom window with cinquefoil-cusping, which lights the main staircase. The north-west elevation is plainer, comprising three bays with three mullioned and transom windows to both floors and a dormer. To the left, the offset service wing of three plus one bay has irregular fenestration and a rear entrance with its mid-19th-century planked door.

The interior is Gothic throughout and exceptionally well-preserved. A fine main staircase occupies the central stair hall. The original joinery extends throughout the house, including a complete set of mid-19th-century doors, and even reaches the attics. The joinery—the main staircase, back stairs, doors, and vertical shutters—is red pine. The Library and hall have compartmented-style moulded ceiling beams. The floors of the Study, hall, and porch retain original Staffordshire tiles. The larder preserves its cast iron framework of hooks for hanging game. The roof contains red pine rafters and purlins, though some modern timbers have been introduced for strengthening. Evidence of early-19th-century timbers and joinery survives in the attics and back bedrooms.

All but two of the original fireplaces remain. They are of Perpendicular design, mostly in rubbed stone, though the Dining Room fireplace is probably Caen stone. Pugin specified in his designs that sound timbers from the original parsonage be re-used in less public areas of the new building—the roof structure, servants' accommodation, and back bedrooms.

The stable range and detached laundry to the north and north-east remain recognisable as part of the original ensemble, though they lack the stylistic characteristics of the house itself and are plain and functional. The former laundry has been converted to residential use and significantly altered. The walls of the former kitchen garden to the rear have also been altered.

Pugin was one of the most important architects of the Victorian period, renowned for reviving the popularity of Gothic architecture in the mid-19th century. He chiefly designed churches but also received secular commissions. The detailed plans and specification for Pugin Hall were produced as a requirement of the client's application for a mortgage from Queen Anne's Bounty, which funded new parsonage building after 1811. This is Pugin's only commission for which a full set of detailed plans and specifications survive in his own hand.

The house exemplifies Pugin's characteristic "pinwheel plan"—an arrangement of rooms whose axes rotate about a central hall, creating varying effects of light and shade. This design was a significant departure for houses of this scale and proved influential on the work of other great Victorian architects, including Butterfield, William White, and Street. The survival of such a complete and unaltered house by Pugin is exceptionally rare, and it represents the most complete example of his domestic architecture.