Sir Walter Raleigh in Dorset Part 3: Architectural Ambition – A New Castle for Sherborne
Architectural Ambition: Sherborne Lodge Raleigh’s architectural ambitions for the old medieval Sherborne Castle hit their limits, whether financial and/or practical, and he began to think again. He turned his attention to an early 16th-C hunting lodge[1] across from...
The English Baroque Plasterwork Garland
Baroque architecture developed in Italy in the early-17th C and appeared in England during the 1660s. The Baroque garland was a motif that appeared as part of a scheme in English plasterwork. This post looks at three examples of plasterwork garlands in Baroque...
The Skimmington Ride – Montacute House, South Somerset
Montacute House is a rare survival from the late Elizabethan moving into the early-Jacobean period. In this post I wish to examine an aspect of decoration in the great hall that tells of how local villagers would deal with a particular transgression of a neighbour....
Finials & Niches – Tudor ornamentation at Longford & Montacute
Figure 1: Longford Castle Entrance Facade (1591). On a summer visit to Longord Castle in Wiltshire my eye was caught by some ornamental details that reminded me of Montacute House in Somerset. Whilst a completely different building to Montacute, I found myself...