Description

SP 4235 BLOXHAM CHURCH STREET
(West side)
531/9/119
Rectory Farmhouse
08.12.1955

GV II*

Farmhouse. Circa mid C15, remodelled C16, extended C17 and C18. Regular coursed ironstone rubble. Steeply pitched gable-ended stone tile roof laid in diminshing courses, stone coped gable end to left [W]. Stone axial and gable-end stacks.
PLAN: T-shaped on plan. The west range contains three bays of a Medieval house, comprising a 2-bay hall and a further bay to the west [W] with clean roof timbers. The hall was floored in circa late C16. In about the early C17 the hall range was extended by one bay on the west and refronted. The putative high end to the east was replaced in about the late C17 by a cross-wing parallel with Church Street, and which was raised and re-roofed in about the early C18 and extended to the south in about the early C19.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and 2 storeys and attic. Asymmetrical 3-window south front; entrance to left of centre with 4-panel door and C20 lintel; to left a 4-light wooden mullion-transom window, to right a 5-light stone mullion window with hoodmould and label stops; first floor 2 and 4-light stone mullion windows at centre and right and wooden mullion window on left; all with leaded panes and iron casements. Wing on right has horizontally sliding sashes and casements with glazing bars. East elevation to Church Street has 12-pane sash, round-headed window and two cross-mullion-transom windows on first floor; ground floor windows boarded over and stone mullion cellar window; small 2-light window in S gable end; lower 2-storey range on left with horizontally sliding sash with glazing bars. Rear N elevation of west range has what might have been a stair tower and lower wing on right.
INTERIOR little altered since C19; C18 and C19 panelled doors, cupboards, shutters, C17 bolection moulded panelled doors, early C19 staircase and stone flag floors. Hall has axial ceiling beam and trimmers with cavetto and ogee mouldings and stops, ceiled joists. Axial stack has back-to-back fireplaces, the hall fireplace with ashlar jambs with ogee and cavetto mouldings and broach stops. The stack forms a lobby entrance with chamfered doorframes to hall and to room to left [W].
Three bays of the Medieval roof survive; 2-bay smoke-blackened hall roof with central chamfered arch-braced tie-beam truss with V-strutts, three tiers of wind-braces, through-purlins and a diagonal ridgepiece, and complete with common-rafter couples; on north side the arch brace springs from a carved wooden corbel shaft; principal members of hall roof are chamfered; hall separated from west bay by closed tie-beam and collar truss, and west bay has one tier of wind-braces. C17 addition to west has principal rafters made from reused timbers. The east cross-wing has a 5-bay tenoned-purlin roof.
NOTE: Rectory Farmhouse was part of the rectory estate at Bloxham granted to Westminster Abbey in 1067; passed to Godstow Abbey circa 1180; after the Dissolution granted to Eton College in 1539, in whose possession it remains.
SOURCES: [1] VCH Oxfordshire, vol IX [1969], 62. [2] RCHME, unpublished report [1998] NBR no.96946.

Listing NGR: SP4295035657

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17547923

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)