Abbey House And Attached Rear Wall

Abbey House and Attached Rear Wall

This is a house of Grade I importance, occupying a prominent position in Malmesbury. Its origins lie in a late 13th-century undercroft, believed to be part of the former Dorter and Reredorter of Malmesbury Abbey, possibly built by Abbot William between 1260 and 1296. The building was largely rebuilt around 1540 by William Stumpe or his son James Stumpe, a prosperous clothier who died in 1552. The house was upgraded in the late 16th and 17th centuries. An agricultural range on the south-west gable was added in the 17th century but demolished in the late 1920s, along with a former east wing. The building was extended in the 1920s by architect Harold Brakespear, with a modern south-east extension added at that time.

The structure is built in roughcast limestone rubble with limestone dressings, ashlar lateral and ridge stacks, and a stone slate cross-gabled roof. The plan is half H-shaped with extruded corners to the front and the 20th-century south-east extension.

The principal elevation presents two storeys, an undercroft and attic, across an 8-window range. The front features gables with roll-top coping and ball finials to the outer wings, the left-hand one projecting further forward. At the centre stands a full-height gabled stair tower set in a right-hand re-entrant, facing a left-hand two-storey entrance porch with a raking roof. Drip courses mark the ground floor and first floor of the stair tower. The main doorway has a four-centre arch with sunken spandrels bearing the coat of arms of James Stumpe and Baunton, with a boarded door below. Windows throughout the front elevation vary in size—five, four, three and two-light mullion windows—with transoms to the ground-floor centre and left-hand wing. These windows feature reserved chamfers and cavetto mouldings to their leaded metal casements and have labels above.

The left-hand end return presents a three-window range with a central gable and a smaller gable to the right, with square stacks. An early 20th-century porch and doorway interrupt this elevation, with two-light mullion windows at either end and above the porch, and a label to the attic window.

The rear elevation shows outer gables and a narrower gable to the right, fenestrated similarly to the front. The undercroft is exposed on this side, formerly with buttresses. It features six one-light windows with two-centre arches, splayed reveals and hoods, with soffit holes indicating former stanchions. A similarly-styled 20th-century cross wing is gabled front and rear, with a single-window linking section and a left-hand doorway. Gable stacks rise from both the 16th-century end gables and the 20th-century range, with a 16th-century ridge stack behind the stair tower. The 16th-century south-east gable bears a sundial at its top.

The interior retains significant medieval and post-medieval features. The undercroft consists of four and three bays, two bays wide, with the springing of an Early English rib vault and octagonal columns. Cinquefoil rere arches are a fine detail. A 16th-century bressumer supports a south-west corner cooking range, and a 15th-century plank door survives.

The ground floor includes beams with tongue stops and an oak newel winder stair in the right-hand stair tower. The north-east parlour displays oak panelling and an overmantel with strapwork and caryatids, with the coat of arms of the Ivy family above—a family known to have lived in the house around 1670. A plaster frieze decorates the front west room. The first floor above the hall contains a right-hand fireplace with broach stops. The roof structure comprises collar trusses and tenoned purlins.

An attached rubble retaining wall extends approximately 30 metres from the north-west corner, curving to the south where it becomes progressively lower. This wall lies along the line of the medieval town wall, and a very short stub projecting from the west side is believed to be 13th-century in date.

The rear wall of Abbey House follows the line of the town wall. Historical records suggest that a walled forecourt may have existed to the south, which by 1636 contained around 60 houses.