Dulverton House (Kings School)

Dulverton House, now part of King's School, originated as the Infirmarer's Lodging attached to the Infirmary of the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter. The house incorporates some remains of the infirmary chapel of St Bridget. After 1540, following the Dissolution, it was remodelled and enlarged as a prebendal house assigned to the prebendary of the third stall of the cathedral. The building dates largely from the 13th and late 14th centuries, with 17th and 18th-century additions and alterations, and substantial 19th-century remodelling, mainly around the 1860s.

The structure combines rubble walls with ashlar details, timber-framing, brick and render. The roofs are tiled with coped gables, hipped dormers, and ashlar stacks.

The plan is complex, consisting of ranges enclosing a small court or light well. The monastic structure, mostly encapsulated within later walls, comprises principally a late 14th-century range of three bays aligned north to south on the east side. Seventeenth-century wings were added on the south side at the west end and on the east side at the south end. A 19th-century wing was added to the south side of the east wing. The west and north sides were extensively remodelled in the 19th century.

The exterior presents two storeys with a cellar and attic. The north end wall of squared rubble features a large gable on the left and a smaller, lower gable on the right. At the north-west corner stands a 19th-century arched entrance doorway angled below moulded corbelling. The north gable-end wall, the north end of the west wall on both floors, and the gables display irregular fenestration of single, double and triple-light stone-framed casement windows, each light with a trefoil head. Further to the right on the west side, the west end of the south range is marked by a length of brick wall with early 17th-century four-light stone-framed and mullioned casements with eared hoodmoulds on each floor. At the right-hand end, the side of the west gabled wing on the south side displays rubble on the ground floor and render above. The gabled end of the wing is of ashlar with three-light stone-framed and mullioned casements with hoodmould on each floor and an exposed roof tie-beam in the gable. On the east side of the wing stands a tall ashlar stack. On the south side between the wings, irregular fenestration includes two 19th-century sashes with central vertical glazing bars.

The east side shows a cross-gabled wing at the left-hand end of the east range. The front of the east range on the ground floor supports three tall stacks. A central doorway of circa 1600 has chamfered jambs and a vertical-plank, iron-studded door. To its left is a sash with glazing bars (two by four panes) and to its right a stone-framed, mullioned two-light casement. On the first floor are three 19th-century stone-framed, mullioned casements with upper transoms, each two-light. The attic features three hipped roof dormers, each with a pair of casements. On the left wing are a sundial and two scratched dates: 1726 and 1743.

The interior is of considerable archaeological significance. Originally the ground floor of the east range was a timber-framed undercroft to a first-floor hall with an open timber roof. Within the former undercroft runs a central, lateral row of chamfered oak posts set on moulded stone bases; the chamfers are stopped under miniature trefoiled arches carved in the solid. At the heads of the posts solid oak brackets are each carved with a figure, probably representing a monk. Posts and brackets support a massive lateral oak beam beneath the floor of the former hall. On the west side of the range is a late 13th-century stone doorway with a Caernarvon arch lintel. The upper floor of the range originally opened into the roof, but an attic floor and partitions were inserted later. The roof, now partly exposed in the attic, has trusses with moulded arched braces to the collar ties and slightly curved wind braces to the purlins.

In the light well, the west wall is timber-framed. On the first floor, a room retains panelling of circa 1600 with carved frieze panels reset above the fireplace. In the cellar at the north end of the west range is a masonry wall at the north end, probably remains of the south wall of the Infirmary Chapel.

This is a house of great archaeological interest.