Bagborough House in West Bagborough, Somerset, [1] England was built circa 1730. It was designated a Grade II* listed building on 4 May 1984. [2]
West Bagborough is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Taunton in the Somerset West and Taunton district. The village has a population of 358.
Somerset is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset's county town is Taunton.
A listed building, or listed structure, is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, Cadw in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency in Northern Ireland.
Bagborough House was built in 1739 by the Popham family, next to St Pancras Church. [3] The saloon has decoration in the style of William Kent which dates from the original construction. [4] The south front which has five Ionic columns, overlooks a landscaped park. [5]
The Anglican Church of St Pancras in West Bagborough, Somerset, England was built in the 15th century. It is a Grade II* listed building.
William Kent was an eminent English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.
The Ionic order forms one of the three classical orders of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order, both added by 16th-century Italian architectural writers, based on Roman practice. Of the three canonic orders, the Ionic order has the narrowest columns.
The house was enlarged in 1820 when the stable block was built. [6] Further enlargement took place in 1900.
There is also a listed sundial, [7] and walled kitchen garden. [8]
A sundial is a device that tells the time of day when there is sunlight by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat plate and a gnomon, which casts a shadow onto the dial. As the Sun appears to move across the sky, the shadow aligns with different hour-lines, which are marked on the dial to indicate the time of day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, though a single point or nodus may be used. The gnomon casts a broad shadow; the shadow of the style shows the time. The gnomon may be a rod, wire, or elaborately decorated metal casting. The style must be parallel to the axis of the Earth's rotation for the sundial to be accurate throughout the year. The style's angle from horizontal is equal to the sundial's geographical latitude.
It has been the venue for various social events including the Hunt Ball of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds.
The deer of Exmoor have been hunted since Norman times, when Exmoor was declared a Royal Forest. Collyns stated the earliest actual record of a pack of staghounds on Exmoor was 1598. In 1803 the "North Devon Staghounds" became a subscription pack. In 1824/5 30 couples of hounds, the last of the true staghounds, were sold to a baron in Germany. Today, the Devon and Somerset is one of three staghounds packs in the UK, the others being the Quantock Staghounds and the Tiverton Staghounds. All packs hunt within Devon and Somerset. The Chairman in 2016 is Tom Yandle, High Sheriff of Somerset in 1999.
It was used as one of the locations for the filming of the film Pandaemonium, which was largely shot in the surrounding Quantock Hills. [9]
Pandaemonium is a 2000 film, directed by Julien Temple, screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It is based on the early lives of English poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, in particular their collaboration on the Lyrical Ballads (1798), and Coleridge's writing of Kubla Khan.
The Quantock Hills is a range of hills west of Bridgwater in Somerset, England. The Quantock Hills were England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, being designated in 1956, and consist of heathland, oak woodlands, ancient parklands and agricultural land.
The house is now lived in by Diana and Philip Brooke-Popham, and used as a wedding venue. [10] [11]
