Alfred'S Hall At Ngr So 972 031

Alfred's Hall at Cirencester Park is a landscape building of Grade II* importance, constructed in 1721 and enlarged in 1732, with 19th-century alterations. It was designed by Alexander Pope and Lord Bathurst.

The building is constructed of coursed squared limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, with a roof concealed behind a parapet. It is a Gothick sham ruin, now genuinely ruinous, of irregular plan with scattered fenestration. The present entrance front faces south and comprises a 2-storey range of 5 windows. The 2 centre bays remain largely intact, with only the roofed portion of the building visible behind the centre-left bay. To the centre right is a screen wall; to the left, a wing forms a screen wall concealing former actual and sham rooms. To the right, a quadrant of screen wall curves forward but is partially collapsed.

The first floor features a lancet window with cusped head and leaded lights to the centre left, a heavily rusticated 2-light stone-mullion window (unglazed) to the centre right, a lancet window with cusped head at the far left, and 2 unglazed lancets in the right quadrant wall.

The ground floor contains a doorway with 4-centred arched head and chamfered reveal, with a brick relieving arch over and a shield and head carved in relief bearing Gothic lettering reading "ALFRED'S HALL" to the centre left. To the centre right is a round-headed doorway. To the left is a 2-light chamfered stone mullion and transom window with cusped-headed lights, with a former doorway now collapsed at the far left. In the right quadrant, 2 lancet windows are present (the left with cusped head) and a pointed doorway at the far right. A low buttress with offsets stands to the left; the bay at the far left breaks forward with quoins at its angles. An embattled parapet surmounts the 2 centre bays, surviving only partially to left and right.

The east side features a 2-storey bow with a 2-light window with traceried head and hoodmould on the first floor, and a 3-light pointed window with intersecting stone tracery and hoodmould on the ground floor, topped by an embattled parapet.

The rear (north) elevation has a lancet with cusped head over a round-headed doorway with hoodmould, keystone, and coat of arms in relief to the left. To the centre are 3- and 4-light stone mullion and transom windows, probably of 19th-century date. A two-storey bow rises to the right, with an embattled parapet above. The west side was probably originally of ruinous appearance with sham rooms, now further collapsed.

The interior now consists of a single rectangular room approximately 12.6 by 4.8 metres, with an apsidal extension inside the eastern bow. Entrance doorways to the south and north and a doorway to a former secondary room to the west survive in moulded timber architraves, with that to the west having a panelled reveal and that to the south with an architrave broken upward at the centre to enclose an armorial device in plaster; the doors themselves are now gone. Remains of oak dado panelling survive. The roof, west wall, and floors of the secondary room to the rear left collapsed in March 1989.

Alfred's Hall is probably the first Gothick sham ruin to be built in England. It was enlarged in 1732 when it was said to have been embellished with fragments from the manor house at Sapperton, which Bathurst demolished that year; panelling and other fittings from Sapperton are now also at Sapperton Church. An etching by Thomas Robins of 1763 shows a small square tower to the north (a fragment of which may remain) and extensive mock ruins now gone. The etching depicts the centre of the north front as a small 2-bay cottage, suggesting that the present stone mullion-and-transom windows and embattled parapet are 19th-century alterations. An 1887 History of Cirencester quotes correspondence between Pope and others indicating that Alfred's Hall was attached to a pre-existing cottage. The extent of popular use in the 19th century may account for the alterations evident today.