Ablington Manor

Ablington Manor is a large manor house dating from 1590, built for John Coxwell, with significant additions and alterations from the early-to-mid 17th century, around 1780, and the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The house is constructed of rubble limestone with early roughcast render in yellow ochre colour wash, ashlar dressings, and ashlar chimneys, with a stone slate roof. It rises to two storeys with an attic and cellar. The original 3-room plan was extended by additions that eventually created a central stair hall arrangement.

The north front is asymmetrical and features three parapet gables. The fenestration is mixed, with mullioned and transomed ovolo moulded cross windows to the ground floor, a central 3-light window to the upper floor, and outer 4-light wide mullioned and transomed windows. Two-light recessed cavetto mullioned casements light the attic, all with hoodmoulds.

Between the central and left gables stands a two-storey parapet gabled porch with diagonal offset buttresses to its ashlar front. The porch features a Doric entablature with fluted pilasters framing a 4-centred archway embellished with five stylised heads—one in each metope. The central head represents Queen Elizabeth I, with Mary to the left and Henry VIII to the right, while the outer heads depict Philip of Spain and James I. Above this archway is a recessed moulded opening bearing raised lettering that reads "PLEAD . THO / V . MY . CAVSE / O . LORD . BY / IHON . COX / WEL . ANO / DOMENY / 1590". Two projecting roundels flank the inscription panel. A three-light recessed cavetto mullioned casement sits above, set between two moulded string courses. The porch roof has a roll moulded parapet with three crocketed finials, and the porch interior contains seats and a bolection moulded doorway with a plank and coverstrip door.

A projecting chimney stack rises between the central and right gables, featuring a tall ashlar shaft and moulded cap. A gabled service wing to the left has a small circular domed cupola.

The south front displays three gables as on the north front, though the central gable is an early 20th-century alteration of an earlier c.1780 pediment. Original 2-light recessed chamfered mullioned casements with hoodmoulds light the attic. The fenestration below derives from c.1780 openings later altered from sashes to casements in the early 20th century, during which a tall central stair window lost its pediment. Three windows occupy the upper floor; a central doorway with moulded architraves and pediment is set to the ground floor, flanked by two casements below each outer gable, all casements displaying beaded architraves and hoodmoulds. Four 2-light mullioned casements serve the cellar plinth. A lower parapet gabled early 20th-century rebuilt addition to the right extends beyond the gable with a shaped parapet.

The east and west ends each display two parapet gables. The east end has three chimneys, each with a moulded cap.

The interior has undergone many alterations in the 20th century. The south-east wing dining room retains complete panelling, probably of the early 17th century, and a Jacobean style plasterwork ceiling. A bolection moulded doorway to the service passage was originally the external doorway on the south side. The stair hall results from c.1780 alterations and contains an open well staircase with a 2-light mullioned window opening in what was formerly an external wall.

The original structure comprised a 3-room range, to which two south wings were added in the early-to-mid 17th century, forming a small courtyard. One of these wings obscured the south end of the original cross passage, though the doorway remains in position. Around 1780, infilling of the courtyard completed the southern half of the house.

The manor was home to J. Arthur Gibbs, author of A Cotswold Village, one of the first books to popularise the Cotswolds in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A small formal garden to the south contains a sundial.