St Marie'S Grange

St. Marie’s Grange is a house built between 1835 and 1837 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, with significant alterations and additions carried out around 1841, likely based on Pugin’s sketches. It is constructed of red brick made locally, with dressings of Chilmark stone, and has tiled roofs. The builder was Osmund of Sarum, who completed the work at a cost of £2,000, for Pugin and his second wife.

The original design comprised a three-storey rectangular block with a wing, also of three stories, which included a chapel and an attached sacristry on the east side. The main entrance is from the Salisbury-Southampton road, accessed via a drawbridge or turning bridge leading directly to the middle floor. This gives onto a tall square stair tower, which in turn leads to the parlour and then the library. A garde-robe turret is situated on the south side. The ground floor originally housed the kitchen, buttery, and fuel stores, with a likely servant’s room and service access located under the chapel. The upper floor contained two bedrooms, also with a garde-robe in a turret. The chapel led axially off the library. Construction employs an English bond of 22-inch brick, diminishing by half-brick at each storey. The stair tower has a flat roof with a parapet, and the upper levels display decorative letters "M" (for Marie), "AWP", and stepped crosses in vitrified black headers. Stone-mullioned windows with four-centred heads, originally leaded (two examples of which survive), are now fitted with paned metal windows.

Significant alterations occurred around 1841, possibly to facilitate a sale. The angle with the chapel was built out to form a square to contain a new lower-floor entrance to the stair hall, and a two-storey bay was added to the chapel, topped with a brattished parapet. The kitchen was converted into a sitting room, with an angled bay window added; many windows and doorways were repositioned. A bell tower was built at the north-east corner, featuring “dream-holes,” topped with a conical roof, and a narrow flush dormer was added alongside. The newer construction utilizes cavity wall construction with snapped headers and Bath stone.

The original studded front door, with an iron knocker and spyhole, remains. Original oak ceilings, featuring moulded beams and chamfered joists with an oak frieze (now covered), survive in the original parlour and library, which are now used as bedrooms, retaining a deeply carved limestone fireplace. A moulded door from the library, with a refixed rebus, is located on the landing. Stained glass featuring Pugin’s monogram and arms has been reset in the later stair hall and chapel. Work carried out around 1841 includes a large oak chimneypiece with mirrors in the lower sitting room, a dog-leg stair with turned balusters, and ceilings with fibrous plaster friezes. Four original trusses of the two-storey chapel remain visible behind later ceilings. During the period he lived here (1835-7), Pugin wrote what is considered to be his most important work, 'Contrasts,' and was also working on Scarisbrick Hall in Lancashire.