Medford House - a history
Compiled by members of Mickleton Women’s Institute in 1970s:
Corner of High Street and Church Lane
May 1975, camera facing SE
Listed: 3/5A Small but well-known house being one of the best examples of the transition from C17 Cotswold style to the Georgian. Complete description in Guy Dawber’s ‘Buildings in the Cotswold District’ [Batsford 1904]. Freestone. Hipped Cotswold stone roof with 3 dormers. Modillion eaves cornice with central segmental pediment surmounted by vase finial. 2s 3ws (stone mullions and transoms). 2 oval ws with rusticated architraves and patterned leads. Either side breaks forward and ground floor ws have cornice above. Doorway has rusticated Ionic pilasters, keystone and voussoirs over the pulvinated frieze and cornice with pediment. Fine chimneys.
Medford House has been described both in the book quoted above and in The Buildings of England series, (Verey, David. Gloucestershire I Cotswolds. Penguin Books, 1970) an extract from which is quoted in the following section where we show illustrations of some of the alterations carried out since 1930 and some interesting detail.
Fire mark (County) over central window in central pediment.
Extract from ‘Gloucestershire I The Cotswolds’ by David Verey. Penguin Books, 1970 (Buildings of England series).
Medford House, built c *1694, the textbook example of the slow transition from the vernacular Tudor Cotswold style to Queen Anne classical. Symmetry has long been established, mullioned and transomed windows persist, there is Renaissance decoration round the entrance and the gables have been abandoned in favour of the hipped roof with dormers. The building is still far from square, being rather long and low, and either side of the central window are rusticated ovals, normally found in the gables. The outer bays break forward and are divided horizontally by a continuous label over the ground floor window. The whole facade is faced in very find golden-coloured ashlar. Above the eaves cornice is a small segmental pediment crowned by a large vase finial. On the left is the kitchen wing, frankly C17 in character, on the right a modern (1930’s) addition; but these do not intrude as they are separated from the forecourt by walls which terminate in piers with finials.
*Built by Saml. Medford, Gent who was buried 25.7.1712. (Bevir, JL – Evesham Journal 30.6.23. Seen at Evesham Public Library).
Date of creation
1975Place
Mickleton, High StreetLicense
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND)Reference number
1331Format
Subject
Keywords
You can carry out an advanced search of the archive by search term.
No Comments
Add a comment about this page