Triumphal Arch Gateway To Hazelgrove House

ST62NW 4/156 24.3.61

SPARKFORD CP HIGH STREET (North-West side) Triumphal Arch gateway to Hazelgrove House

(formerly listed as Gateway to Hazelgrove Park)

II*

Gateway in form of triumphal arch. Late C17. Local grey lias ashlar with Ham stone dressing; nature of flat roof unknown. Single arch, with wrot iron gates. Moulded plinth, impost courses, slight corner pilasters and low plain parapet; rather wide pilasters with Ionic capitals flanking 3-centre archway with moulded arched architrave having central keystone. Sides have later gatepiers with scroll sweeps, now redundant, and north-East side has a down pipe with ornamental lead stack head. Archway has double rebates and piers for former double gates; now with wrot iron gates, probably early C20, which have swept top rails, elaborate scrollwork and twist drop points; sides and middle rails also have scrollwork ornament, with a bottom panel of spearpoint rails. Gateway now serves Hazelgrove House (qv) in Queen Camel CP, but was originally built as a gateway to Low Ham Manor, near Somerton, a mammoth project of the late C17 which was never completed; it was presumably acquired by the Mildmay family, lords of Queen Camel Manor,1l possibly Carew Mildmay, who reshaped Hazelgrove House in 1730.

Listing NGR: ST6004125940