Listed Building record MDO11187 - The Old House, The Close, Blandford Forum

This house is something of a curiosity and the fact that it was one of the few houses to escape the fire of 1731 gives it an additional interest. It was built about the middle of the seventeenth century by Dr Sagittary, a native of the Palatinate, who held English medical degrees and practised in Blandford. This origin may explain its Germanic character. It is a red brick house with a stone slate roof which is hipped and steeply pitched.

THE OLD HOUSE on the S. side of The Close and about 200 yds. N.E. of the church, is of brick in a free English bond wherein one header course alternates with two, three or four stretcher courses. The steep hipped roof with wide spreading eaves is of gradated stone-slates for two thirds of its height and of tiles above. Although the kitchen wing appears to have been added after the walls of the main block were complete, the roofs are homogeneous and the addition must have been made while the house was still in building. The proportions of the windows, the rustication of the brickwork and the design of the roof all indicate the middle of the 17th century. In the later part of the 17th century the house belonged to Dr. Joachim Frederic Sagittary, a German, who entered Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of 17 in 1634, received his M.D. in 1661, practised medicine in Blandford and died in 1696. The house is likely to have been built by him some time between 1650 and 1670. <2-3>

Record last edited

Feb 28 2022 10:05AM