Abbotsfield

Abbotsfield is a country house, built circa 1872, and now converted into flats. It was designed by Owen Jones for Lacey Collard, a piano manufacturer, and is one of the few buildings designed by the influential Victorian design theorist, and the only one to survive. The house is constructed from squared red sandstone rubble masonry with white limestone dressings, quoins, a dentil cornice, and a West Somerset slate roof. The entrance facade features a three-bay, single-storey block with a central porch, gabled Y-tracery dormers, and a two-storey gabled bay to the left, which has acroteria as finials and coping stones. A three-and-a-half-storey pyramid-roofed staircase tower stands to the right, with two and three-light mullioned and transomed windows. A ballroom wing with a rondel in its gable projects forward to the right, and a two-storey, L-shaped servants’ block with stables extends beyond to the left. The garden facade includes a four-bay loggia with a balustrade and gabled Y-tracery dormers above, set between two-storey gabled wings with splayed bay windows at ground floor level, with a conservatory to the left. The detailing is remarkably eclectic. The interior is not of particular interest.