Jaggards House

Jaggards House

A substantial house rebuilt around 1657 for R. Kington, incorporating elements of a late medieval predecessor. The building stands in an L-plan configuration with a main range of one room depth and an east end cross-wing. It comprises two and a half storeys with rough rendered rubble stone walls, stone tiled roofs, coped gables, and large paired ashlar stacks.

The symmetrical north front likely occupies the site of a medieval hall. It features an east end stack and a large central outside stack, with a coped gable on each side. Windows throughout are ovolo-moulded, with mullion windows to the attics and mullion-and-transom windows to the main floors. The north front displays a two-window range of 2-light windows on each side of the central stack, with a dripcourse running over the ground floor and continuing around the stack, and a similar course at eaves level around the stack. Each gable carries a 2-light attic window with hoodmould and an attached 2-storey porch with coped gable. The left porch, constructed in ashlar, opens to a through passage and features an upper 2-light mullion-and-transom window, a dripcourse below, and a basket-arched moulded doorway with a moulded inner doorway containing a framed plank door. The right side porch, apparently earlier, has rough rendered walls, an upper 3-light recessed chamfered mullion window, and a similar doorway.

The west end gable shows a comparable attic window, two similar first floor windows beneath a single hoodmould, and a dripcourse over the ground floor. The south-running wing features a ridge stack and cross-gabled south end. The ground floor contains a 19th-century six-light window and an original 2-light window; the first floor has two 2-light windows, one with hoodmould continuing around the angle to a south end dripcourse, and a 2-light attic window in the gable. The south end displays dripcourses, a 2-light attic, 2-light first floor, and a ground floor 3-light mullion window with flush quoins. The east return shows similar attic and first floor windows above a 19th-century door. The rear of the main range has a three-window range of 2-light windows with a dripcourse and a door to the right, beneath a central gable containing a 2-light window and a dormer. A 20th-century glazed verandah has been added, and the original framed plank door as found on the north front is present here too.

The cross-wing at the east end features a coped north gable with Tudor-arched mullion windows of probable 15th or 16th-century date: a 2-light above and a 3-light below. The east return displays a coped gable and 4-light 17th-century ovolo-moulded windows with king-mullion and hoodmould on each floor. The wing extends beyond the south front of the main range, with a south end gable rebuilt around 1900, though the western gable enclosing the rear court remains largely original, featuring a 2-light attic window, 3-light and single light to the first floor, all ovolo-moulded with hoodmoulds. An east-running wing has a north front largely of around 1900, although the east gable end retains original 17th-century 2-light and 3-light windows. In the angle to the south and across the east end stand two parallel service ranges, one dated 1899.

The interior contains a heavily carved north-west staircase with a fretted stair arch, carved newel finials, flat balusters, and moulded rails. A room in the rear wing to the west preserves a fine carved stone fireplace bearing the initials of R. and I. Kington and the date 1657, together with a contemporary moulded plaster ceiling featuring masks at each corner of the centre panel and fleurs-de-lys. Panelling was substantially altered around 1900. The central room of the main range retains 18th-century fielded panelling to dado level and a late 18th-century fireplace. The north end room in the cross-wing features a shallow curved stone seat built into the north wall.

The house descended from a holding documented in 1340 and held by the Kington family from around 1560 to 1766, thereafter passing to J. Shore, the Leir family, and in 1866 to J. B. Fuller of Neston Park. The house was restored for Sir J. M. F. Fuller (1864–1914). Extensions and alterations were undertaken by H. Brakspear in 1899.