Hornblotton House

Hornblotton House

A rectory and offices built in 1848 by FC Penrose for Revd JGD Thring, Rector of Alford, significantly updated and enlarged in 1881 by TG Jackson for Theodore Thring, with further alterations in subsequent periods.

The building is constructed of dressed local lias stone with Doulting and Castle Cary limestone dressings forming the window openings, quoins and moulded kneelers to the gables, and chimneystacks. Window frames are timber and metal casements and sashes of varied date. Roofs are tile-covered, and most gables feature ventilation slits, stone coping and finials.

The house is oriented on an east-west axis with its principal west elevation facing the Fosseway. It is a two-storey building with attic and basement, arranged on a mid-19th century rectory L-corridor plan containing a central stair hall with ground floor study, drawing room and dining room. A corridor behind the stair serves the service rooms and former service range. A later two-storey early 20th-century wing extends to the east on the garden front. Attached to the north are former stables and coach house, now converted to residential use, with single-storey attached stores.

The principal west front displays Revival style characteristics, featuring mullioned casements with eared architraves under cambered heads and drip moulds, a moulded storey band and stone plinth. A central gabled entrance bay projects forward, with the door positioned to the right under a three-centred arch and an inserted two-light opening above under its own drip mould. This inserted window may date to the 1881 alterations, which also included the lowering of some window cills and widening of others. The bay to the right of the entrance contains a canted bay window inserted in the 20th century, replacing a former chimneybreast and stack. The left return of the entrance bay carries a chimney with offset and ashlar stack. The bays to the former service range on the left feature a wider chimney of similar style with casements to each side. Relieving arches at first-floor level indicate where openings have been altered, including the former coach entrance at the bottom left opening. Dormer windows break through the eaves either side of the stack, with the left dormer being a later insertion. The north gable end wall has single casements below an end stack and above the former stable roof. The far-left bays of the principal front are the adapted former stable bays, containing two casements under relieving arches, a buttress with offsets to the left corner, a modern five-light dormer and an ashlar end stack.

The garden front features two prominent gabled bays with canted bay windows. Between them stands a central Anglo-Renaissance bay, canted and two storeys in front, with a gabled Anglo-Renaissance stair window to the rear, framed by two stone stacks. The windows across the garden front are stone-mullioned, some with transoms, and feature flat heads. The left bay has a two-storey canted bay with steel tie ends at first-floor level. The central bay contains an oak garden door with iron strap hinges. The right bay is of two storeys plus attic, with a ground floor canted bay and an opening with drip mould above. A two-storey wing of approximately 1930, in sympathetic Revival style with ashlar end stack, adjoins to the right, behind which rises the roof of the former coach house. To the far right of the garden front is a 20th-century canted bay window to the parapeted end of the former service wing.

The south end elevation displays a two-storey square bay window to the left with tiled roofs to each floor. Stone buttresses with offsets occupy the corners. The windows have cambered heads and slender mullions, with ground-floor windows featuring a transom. To the right gable eaves is a chimneystack, and to the right a wide chimney with offsets accompanied by a two-light mullioned window to its left and a modern conservatory at ground floor.

The interior retains substantial period character. The vestibule and entrance hall feature a moulded cornice, with an open-well stair of 20th-century balustrade to the rear. Principal rooms lead from the hall: the study contains modern fittings which may conceal a fireplace to the north wall. The drawing room has a stone chimneypiece, and the south bay window features recessed timber shutters and panelling with chamfer detailing, with a cambered-head door to the conservatory. The dining room and hallway contain late 19th-century inserted doorways and steps down to the serving room, which has exposed stone corbels to the ceiling and a stone door surround with cambered head to the garden door, along with pantry cupboards. Steps in the corridor descend to the former service wing. The former kitchen, converted to a lounge, retains a stone fireplace and opens into the former scullery and cook's court, rebuilt around 1930. The former servant's hall features a fitted dresser and corner fireplace with tiling and plain timber surround.

The former coach house, now a kitchen, contains an inserted stop-chamfered ceiling beam and range cooker in an inglenook. An adjoining room holds a kitchen with brick arch and stone bread oven feature, possibly constructed from materials on site. The service wing corridor displays a servant bell indicator fixed to the wall, a lightwell to one ceiling section and various exposed and underfloor heating system pipework. A plain back stair and wide ledged plank door under cambered head lead to storerooms and yard.

From the main stair landing, steps enter the former library. An angled doorway to the left represents an inserted breach through a former chimney, with a stone-mullioned window enclosed in the wall behind. The former library has a deep vaulted ceiling. Rooms in the former service wing contain some irregularly positioned stop-chamfered beams, with exposed roof trusses to attic spaces distinctively braced and strapped. Plain chimney pieces occupy some attic spaces. The upper floors contain bedrooms arranged around the stairwell at varying levels, with some room subdivisions altered. Plaster cornicework is generally plain. Joinery throughout the building is primarily of plain detailing and largely of late 20th-century date, though some 19th-century doors and other joinery of late 19th and early 20th-century date remain. The stone cellar below the rectory is brick-vaulted with stone-flagged floors and chutes for coal and ash.

The roofs are kingpost structures with braces, primarily dating to the 1881 phase, although some later replacements and brick pier reinforcements are present, and the north end may date to repairs undertaken in the 1870s.