Alfoxton House
Alfoxden Park (a 1920 book illustration)
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or city	Holford
Country	England
Coordinates	51°09′55″N 3°13′12″W / 51.1652°N 3.2201°W / 51.1652; -3.2201
Completed	1710
Client	John 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