Alfoxton House

Alfoxton House
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or city Holford
Country England
Coordinates 51°09′50″N 3°12′31″W / 51.1638°N 3.2085°W / 51.1638; -3.2085
Completed 1710
Client John St Albyn

Alfoxton House, also known as Alfoxton Park, was built as an 18th-century country house in Holford, Somerset, England, within the Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The present house was rebuilt in 1710 after the previous building was destroyed in a fire.[1]

History

The poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy lived at Alfoxton House between July 1797 and June 1798, during the time of their friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.[2] Dorothy began her journals here in January 1798 but discontinued them 2 months later to recommence when the couple moved to the Lake District.[3] These were posthumously published as The Alfoxden Journal, 1798 and The Grasmere Journals, 1800-1803.

The building was refenestrated and re-roofed in the 19th century. It has been changed and extended significantly since the time of the Wordsworths to turn it into a country hotel. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II listed building.[3] During World War II it housed evacuees from Wellington House School Westgate on Sea in Kent.[4]

Building

Alfoxton House was built in the 18th century of rendered rubble stone, the main block being on a double-pile plan, i.e. two main rooms on each side of a central corridor. The house is two storeys high, with an attic that includes dormer windows. The frontage includes a central porch with columns, frieze and cornice in a Doric style. There is an extension to the left, originally an orangery, with a steep roof over a verandah. The wall includes the coat of arms of the St. Albyn family who owed the house for many years.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Alfoxton Park Hotel". Information Britain. Archived from the original on 1 May 2005. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  2. ↑ "Stringston". British History Online. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "Alfoxton Park Hotel". Images of England. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Waite, Vincent (1964). Portrait of the Quantocks. London: Robert Hale. ISBN 0-7091-1158-4.
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