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Summary

Early 19th century Gothic rectory, converted into a country house in the 1840s; the centre block demolished c.1950

Monument Types

• COUNTRY HOUSE (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)
• FOLLY (c.1832, Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)
• VICARAGE (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 159994: HUNSDONBURY
• Listed Building (II) 159991: MISTLETOE HOUSE AND THE COACH HOUSE
• Listed Building (II) 159993: THE GATE HOUSE
• Listed Building (II) 159990: EAST LODGE
• Listed Building (II) 159995: NORTH LODGE
• Listed Building (II) 159992: MOCK RUIN IN GARDEN OF LONGCROFT

Full description

Hunsdonbury is 'an elaborate Gothic rectory of 1832 of outstanding architectural and historical interest, and especially notable for the contemporary interiors and the vigorous grotesques used as label stops. Reduction in size has not reduced its interest' <1>. The reduction involved the demolition of the centre of the building c.1950, the two wings becoming two separate properties. An inscription, apparently in the cellar, was recorded in 1915 as reading 'This house rebuilt 1832 at the expense of the Revd R U Calvert Rector. C Kemp architect'. The Calvert family lived at Hunsdon House [2789], but abandoned it in the later 1840s and moved into Hunsdonbury, which was then altered from a rectory into a country house. The surviving portions (called Hunsdonbury and The Gate House) are in white brick with stone dressings and some stucco, and a tiled roof behind parapets. The complete house was a large irregular rectory in Tudor style; the wing now called Hunsdonbury is a compact rectangular two-storey building with a shallow west entrance wing and a two-storey porch, dating to the 1840s. Traces of the original single-storey porch survive around a window on the north front. From the east end of the north front the centre of the house ran northward to the other wing, now the Gate House. This is a two-storey block with attic and basement in white brick with tiled gabled roofs and heavy stucco mouldings, 'an interesting early 19th century Gothic house' <1>.
The whole building is shown in plan on the later 19th century OS maps <2, 3>. It was a long rectangular structure with the Gate House forming a NE projecting wing, and service wings around an atttached yard to the north. The house stood within a park, with coach house and stables to the north and a pair of gate lodges beyond, all within trees. East and south of the house were lawns.
In the garden east of the Gate House, on the boundary with the property to the north, is a mock ruin, built c.1832 and assumed to be by Kemp for the Rev Mr Calvert. It is in knapped flint with stucco dressings on brick to look like the stone base of a medieval church tower with corner buttresses and arched doorway, which has kings' heads on the dripmould. This door leads into a small circular vaulted chamber, plastered to represent ashlar and covered by a large semicircular earth mound. The 'ruin' is partly covered with creeper <1>.
The south wing, still called Hunsdonbury, now has considerable western extensions.

<1> Listed Buildings description (Digital archive). SHT6690.

<2> OS 25 inch map, 1st edition, 1880 (Cartographic material). SHT8116.

<3> OS 25 inch map, 2nd edition (1897-1901), 1898 (Cartographic material). SHT8113.

Sources and further reading

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