Leburn House And Lower Leburn, Including Stable Block And Rear Garden Walls

Leburn House and Lower Leburn, including stable block and rear garden walls

Two adjoining houses, formerly one house, located on Luke Street in Bampton. Documents record a building date of 1766 for Richard Bowden, a mercer, although many features appear to be earlier in date.

Both buildings are constructed in dressed local stone. Leburn House, to the right, has an asbestos slate roof gabled at the ends with sprocketted eaves to the rear and end stacks with stone shafts. Lower Leburn, to the left, has a bitumen-painted slate roof to the main range, gabled at the ends, with rusticated quoins and a right-end brick stack. The rear wing of Lower Leburn has an asbestos slate roof and two projecting lateral stacks.

The plan consists of a main range of single depth with three rooms wide. The two right-hand rooms form Leburn House with the principal rooms, while Lower Leburn is the service block at the left end with a rear wing heated by the lateral stacks. The rear wing separates the garden to the rear of Leburn from a service courtyard to the south-east of Lower Leburn, which has a former stable block to the rear of the courtyard, attached to the wing.

Leburn House comprises three storeys over cellars with an exceptionally attractive four-bay front elevation. The second and third storeys are divided by pilasters with a very deep coved cornice carried around the pilasters. Slate steps lead up to a recessed front door in the first bay from the left, featuring fielded panels and a panelled soffit and reveals to the doorcase with fluted half-columns supporting an entablature. Original window embrasures with segmental arches to the first and second floors feature voussoirs and keystones with variety of glazing. The two second-floor right-hand windows are 18th-century twelve-pane sashes with moulded architraves and thick glazing bars. The two left-hand windows are probably early 18th-century two-light casements with eight panes per light and narrow margin panes. The first-floor windows are glazed with circa early 19th-century twelve-pane sashes. The two left-hand ground-floor windows are sashes with glazing bars to the top lights only, whilst the ground-floor window to the right is a 20th-century top-hung twelve-pane casement. Evidence of a former first-floor balcony survives. The rear elevation, overlooking the churchyard, has left and right rusticated pilasters, a deep coved cornice and a shallow two-storey lean-to, probably a 20th-century addition. The four second-floor windows are two-light casements with eight panes per light and narrow margin panes, the right-hand window being false. The first floor contains a 20th-century casement and one two-light casement with eight panes per light.

Good ramped 18th-century slate-capped garden walls on the churchyard boundary are laced with courses of smaller blocks and have rectangular gate piers.

Lower Leburn has a three-bay front elevation with rusticated quoins. A recessed panelled front door in the left-hand bay features a rectangular fanlight with glazing bars and a cornice carried on brackets. The windows are twelve-pane sashes. The lateral stacks to the rear wing suggest a 17th-century or possibly earlier date for this block.

The interior of Leburn House contains fine interior details, many of which appear earlier than 1766. A splendid compact dog-leg stair is tucked into the rear left corner and extends to the attic storey with an open string, steeply-ramped handrail and alternating fluted, columnar and barley-sugar balusters. The landings have late 17th-century or 18th-century plaster egg and dart and dentil cornices. The principal first-floor living room has a fine circa mid-18th-century decorated plaster ceiling with a central rose and moulded ribs in an oval pattern. Smaller first and second-floor rooms have deep moulded cornices. The second-floor landing has possibly earlier 18th-century ornamental plasterwork including rustic flowers, with the design truncated by the partition wall of the right-hand room. Numerous fine 18th-century panelled doors with fielded panels survive. Surviving chimneypieces are mostly early 19th-century. The cellar has a winding stone stair which formerly led to the service rooms (Lower Leburn) and a large open fireplace with a chamfered lintel. The roof structure comprises apex pegged roof-trusses of large scantling, with subsidiary roof timbers being 20th-century replacements.

The interior of Lower Leburn was not inspected but may contain features of interest. The south wing may have early roof timbers.

This is an impressive 18th-century town house in a prominent position in Luke Street with exceptional exterior and interior features.