The King'S House And College Of Sarum St Michael

The King's House and College of Sarum St Michael is a large house, originally dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, with alterations from the 16th, 17th, and 20th centuries. The east front is two storeys and has an attic, constructed of rubble stone and flint with stone dressings, and brick with stone dressings. It has an old tile roof. The older part of the east front features three stone gables, each with a single three-light stone mullioned window with leaded lights. The left-hand gable is partly obscured by a modern wing. A two-storey, projecting gabled porch with buttressing sits next to the left-hand gable. The porch has a 14th or early 15th century moulded archway, together with stone fan vaulting. The original inner door, featuring planted cusped panels on a ledged oak door, is within a similar archway. A single two-light mullioned window is above the porch. The two right-hand gables each contain large ten-light stone mullioned and transomed windows with leaded lights on the first floor, and similar twelve-light windows on the ground floor. The visible traces of older windows indicate that this section was formerly a Great Hall. A 16th-17th century extension to the right includes a brick section with a restored three-light stone mullioned attic window and a projecting two-storey bay with splayed angles and a thirty-light stone mullioned and transomed window on the first floor, and a similar twenty-light window on the ground floor, all with leaded lights. A tall, narrow six-light window is located in the upper corner of the right-hand side, as is a two-light window on the ground floor. A four-storey 16th century wing also projects on the right, featuring irregular casements, a door, and modern additions. All gables have dressed stone copings with small finials. The west front has a similar gabled brick portion with a large mullioned window and the date 1661 inscribed on stone. The remainder of the front is obscured by later work. 19th century college extensions on the side include dormitories built in 1873 and a wing with a chapel constructed in 1899, which contains stained glass by Kempe. Internally, evidence of an open hall remains, and the east-west entrances are still in line, with the western entrance now situated inside the house. A Georgian Ionic screen has replaced the original hall screen in a room behind the porch. Both this room and the room to its south have fine moulded fireplaces. The roof structure has also survived, including a smoke louvre truss, cusped windbraces, and is continued to the south with plain windbraces in two tiers. On the north side, a first-floor room has a 16th century plastered ceiling with an interlaced geometrical pattern. The house was originally the Prebendal residence of the Abbot of Sherborne. After the Reformation, it became the residence of Thomas Sadler, Registrar to the Bishops of Sarum, who entertained James I. Later, it housed a Teacher Training College for Women Teachers in 1852 and is featured in Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure." The listed buildings within the Close form a significant group.