Alfoxton House
Alfoxden Park (a 1920 book illustration)
Alfoxton House is located in Somerset
Alfoxton House
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or cityHolford
CountryEngland
Coordinates51°09′55″N 3°13′12″W / 51.1652°N 3.2201°W / 51.1652; -3.2201
Completed1710
ClientJohn St Albyn

Alfoxton House, also known as Alfoxton Park or Alfoxden, is 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 designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building.[3] During World War II it housed evacuees from Wellington House Preparatory School at Westgate-on-Sea in Kent.[4] After use as a country hotel followed by a period of disuse, the house was sold in January 2018.[5] It was again for sale (with 50 acres) in July 2018,[6] and in 2020 purchased for about £2 million by the Alfoxton Park Trust for use by the Triratna Buddhist Community.[7]

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 owned 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". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Waite, Vincent (1964). Portrait of the Quantocks. London: Robert Hale. ISBN 0-7091-1158-4.
  5. ↑ Jones, Paul (5 January 2018). "Derelict Alfoxton Park, Somerset, former hotel and home of poet William Wordsworth, sold". Somerset County Gazette.
  6. ↑ "Historic Somerset country house hotel and estate for sale | Christie & Co".
  7. ↑ Simpson, Craig (30 July 2020). "William Wordsworth's idyllic home to become Buddhist retreat". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
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