Icomb Place (pronounced "Ickum") is a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

on the edge of the village of

Icomb Icomb is a village in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, near to Stow on the Wold. The population taken at the 2011 census was 202. The village appears as ''Iacumbe'' in the Domesday Book. Parish Church The Church of St Mary is the parish churc ...

, near

Stow on the Wold Stow-on-the-Wold is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill at the junction of main roads through the Cotswolds, including the Fosse Way (A429), which is of Roman origin. The town was founde ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. The word "place" in this context is thought to be a precursor of "palace".

Description

The house is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, 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, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. Mentioned in the Doomsday Book and owned by

Roger de Lacy Roger de Lacy (died after 1106) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman, a Marcher Lord on the Welsh border. Roger was a castle builder, particularly at Ludlow Castle. Lands and titles From Walter de Lacy (died 1085) he inherited Castle Frome, Hereford ...

at the time, the house has undergone considerable alteration since its 11th-century beginnings with only the moat remaining. The house seems to have started out as a modest courtyard dwelling, but later (some time before 1423) was made grander by the creation of the

great hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great ...

and remodelling of the solar (with barrel vaulted timber roof). The building has many unusual features: for example, no room has a right angle on its plan view, all rooms being a trapezium in form. The oldest parts of the building date from between 1086 and 1420 include the

undercroft An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room, often brick-lined and vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area which is relatively open ...

(northwest wing), the battlemented gateway and the southeast wing, originally the kitchens and servants' quarters. The great hall is disproportionally large and its upper end obtrudes into the line of the solar range. It is a substantial room of and is divided into five bays by braced collar-beam trusses in the walls at the side. Other similar trusses extend along the entire north range which contain two original bedrooms. These bedrooms have fireplaces connected to mid-level chimney stacks. The 17th-century parts of the house on the east elevation include a great chamber on the first floor which contains a pair of one of the world's earliest surviving flying (or floating) mullion windows. The alterations carried out in ''c''.1420 were undertaken by the then owner, Sir John Blacket, "the hero of Agincourt" (who fought alongside

Henry V of England Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the ...

at the

Battle of Agincourt The Battle of Agincourt ( ; french: Azincourt ) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected English victory against the numerica ...

and is buried in the nearby church). At this point the house had two courtyards, and most of the oak timber used for the re-roofing was felled in the winter of 1421/1422 from the nearby

Cirencester Cirencester (, ; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswolds. It is the home of ...

area. After a period of dereliction during the 18th and 19th centuries the house was bought by Samuel Simpson Hayward, the father of

George Simpson-Hayward George Hayward Thomas Simpson-Hayward (7 June 1875 – 2 October 1936) was an English cricketer who played in five Test matches in 1910 and took six wickets on debut in the first innings. He is notable for being the last serious exponent of un ...

, who made alterations to the building. The renovation at the start of the 20th century demolished the south wing and southern courtyard and constructed a

rock garden A rock garden, also known as a rockery and formerly as a rockwork, is a garden, or more often a part of a garden, with a landscaping framework of rocks, stones, and gravel, with planting appropriate to this setting. Usually these are small A ...

and extensive

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

s, some of which remain today.

References

*{{cite book , first=Christopher Simon , last=Sykes , title=Ancient English Houses 1240–1612 , location=London , publisher=Chatto & Windus , date=1988 , isbn=0701131764 Buildings and structures completed in 1230 Houses completed in the 13th century Buildings and structures completed in 1420 Houses completed in the 15th century Grade I listed houses in Gloucestershire Country houses in Gloucestershire