St Marie'S Grange

CLARENDON PARK ALDERBURY SU 12 NE Shute End Road 9/57 St. Marie's Grange 9.2.73 I

House, 1835-7 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin,, enlarged and altered c1841, probably to sketches by Pugin. Red brick of local manufacture, with Chilmark stone dressings. Tiled roofs. Builder, Osmund of Sarum, at cost of £2,000, for Pugin and his second wife. Original structure a 3-storey rectangular block with wing, also 3 storeys containing chapel and attached sacristry on east. Entrance from Salisbury-Southampton road via draw or turning bridge to middle floor, alongside tall square stair tower, giving directly on to parlour, and beyond, the library, with garde-robe turret on south. Ground floor contained kitchen buttery and fuel stores, with probably servant's room and service access under chapel. Upper floor of two bedrooms, also with garde-robe in turret. Chapel led axially off library. All constructed in English bond 22-in brick diminishing by half-brick at each storey. Stair tower flat roofed with parapet, and upper levels, decorated with letters M (for Marie) AWP and stepped crosses, in vitrified black headers. Stone- mullioned windows with four centred heads, originally leaded, of which 2 survive, and now paned metal windows. Building extensively altered c1841 possibly to facilitate sale, angle with chapel built out to square to contain new entrance at lower floor level to stair hall, 2-storey bay added to chapel with brattished parapet, kitchen converted to sitting room with angled bay, many windows and doorways moved. Bell tower built at north-east corner with 'dream- holes' and conical roof, and adjoining narrow flush dormer. New works in cavity wall construction with snapped headers and Bath stone. Interior: Original front door studded, with iron knocker and spyhole. Oak ceilings of original work comprising moulded beams and chamfered joists with oak frieze, now covered, survive in original parlour and library now bedrooms, the library retaining deeply carved limestone fireplace, also some lesser fireplaces. Moulded door from library with rebus refixed on landing. Stained glass with Pugin's monogram and arms reset in later stair hall and chapel. Work of 1841 includes large oak chimneypiece with mirrors in lower sitting room, dog-leg stair with turned balusters, and ceilings with fibrous plaster friezes. Original 4 trusses of the 2-storey chapel survive behind later ceilings. While living here, 1835-7, Pugin wrote what was, probably his most important work 'Contrasts', and, inter alia, was working on Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashire. (B. Ferrey: Recollections of A.Welby Northmore Pugin (1861); Phoebe Stanton: Pugin, (1971); John Piper: Arch. Review xcviii, (1945), 81)

Listing NGR: SU1731728162