HER 3686 DESCRIPTION:-

Listed Buildings Description:-

SO 90 NE DUNTISBOURNE ABBOTS DUNTISBOURNE LEER 6/74 Nutbeam Farmhouse 4.6.52 GV II*

Large country house. One wing partly C15, extended C17; large C18 addition; remodelled by Norman Jewson in C20. Random rubble and coursed limestone; dressed stone windows, doors and quoins; rubble, ashlar and blue brick chimneys; stone-slate roof. C15 wing extended by one room in C17, 2-storey with attic; C18 range added parallel to, and partly lapping with earlier house is 2- storey with attic and - before C20 remodelling - had central staircase hall with 1 room laterally; outshut to back of C18 range; C20 service additions at back of house. South gable end to earlier house has single window fenestration: 4-light chamfered mullioned without hood to ground floor, 6-light mullioned and transomed with hoodmould to upper floor. Scattered fenestration to east side of wing with moulded buttress at south east corner: two altered 2-light, that to ground floor having hoodmould; 2-light Perpendicular window to upper floor is said to be an accurate copy of original window in this position; timber lintel to doorway. South gable end of C18 range has blue brick chimney at ridge and fenestration altered to mullioned windows from sashes in C20; C18 deep stone lintels indicate original fenestration. Main C18 east front is 3-window and altered to 2 and 3-light mullioned windows; at centre to upper floor is single-light with 4-centred arched head; attic roof dormer at centre. At north end blue brick chimney at ridge and surviving C18 sash, otherwise fenestration altered. Tall ashlar chimney stack at back of C18 range. Late C17 single-window fenestration to north end gable of older house: 5-light to ground floor is enlargement from original 3-light; 3- light to upper floor and 2-light to attic. Back gabled wing added in C20; altered fenestration to back of older house. Interior of upper floor room in C15 wing has close-studded partition and 2 ogee-headed timber doorways; 2-bay arched braced open roof with cusped collar and windbraces. Recorded as a monastic house and a possession of the Abbey of Lyre in Normandy but by C13 had been transferred into the ownership of Cirencester abbey. Sits on a promontory, typical of that occupied by other monastic houses in this area. (A. Carver, The Story of Duntisbourne Abbots, 1966.) Listing NGR: SO9801607443 {Source Work 2387.}

Norman Jewson (1884 - 1975) came from a family of timber merchants in Norwich. After studying at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge he worked at the architectural practise of Herbert Ibberson in London. Jewson was an accomplished watercolourist and after finishing his apprenticeship in 1907 he went on a sketching tour of the Cotswolds. Ibberson had recommended that Jewson visited Ernest Gimson in Sapperton and Gimson took him on as an ‘improver’. As part of his training he was encouraged to draw a different wildflower everyday and adapt it to form a pattern suitable for plasterwork, wood carving or needlework. In 1911 Jewson married and converted a group of cottages at Bachelor’s Court in Sapperton for himself. He set up his own practise in 1919 and quickly gained a reputation for the sympathetic conversion and adaptation of old buildings. He was a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and he wanted his buildings to have the basic qualities of the best old houses, built in the traditional way with local materials. Jewson’s buildings worked in a vernacular classicism with characteristically fine plasterwork. His work also included fine metal work and gates and detailed architectural lead work and wood carving. He also designed and made furniture. {Source Work 10673.}

Part of Nutbeam farmhouse dates from about 1440 and the Medieval hall still exists, though a floor has been inserted. The farm, which was a portion of the lands held by the Abbey of Lire in Normandy, and later by Cirencester Abbey, contains a chapel and may have been a grange.

Nutbeam Farm (name confirmed), a private residence in good condition. The structure comprises two, two-storey linked stone- built blocks, aligned N-S, the western having been the Medieval hall with a chapel at the S end upon the first floor. The house has been completely refenestrated in recent times, except for the 15th century chapel window on the East, and much altered, particularly internally. There are modern additions to the West and North. Not outstanding apart from the historical associations. {Source Work 862.}