Camerton Court is a historic house in the village of Camerton,

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, England. It has been designated as a Grade II

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 ...

House

The country house was built in 1835, designed by

George Repton George William John Repton (1818 – 30 August 1906) was a British Conservative Party politician who held a seat in the House of Commons for most of the period from 1841 to 1885, first as a Member of Parliament (MP) for St Albans and then for ...

. It is constructed from

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, with a slate and concrete tiled roof. The building is two storeys with a porte-cochère with Tuscan columns at the front. From the garden the building has an

octastyle A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

colonnade with

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

columns, with a conservatory to the left. The remains of the previous house were turned into a stable block, but have since become a separate home. The gardens were laid out in 1835 but was extensively remodelled in the 1980s. the majority of the estate is parkland but there is a kitchen garden on the approach to the house, as well a small orchard. There are also a number of

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 on the site. The formal gardens include ornamental structures, a canal, gazebos and a pond with fountain.

History

There has been a manor at Camerton since the reign of

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...

, who granted the manor to the monks of

Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury ...

. After the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

granted the manor to the

Earl of Morton The title Earl of Morton was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1458 for James Douglas of Dalkeith. Along with it, the title Lord Aberdour was granted. This latter title is the courtesy title for the eldest son and heir to the Earl of Morton. ...

, who traded back to the monks of Glastonbury. The monks largely held the manor until 14th century, when it was passed between the Dinham and Paulton families. The Carew family held the manor between the 15th century and 18th century. The present house was built by John Jarrett circa 1835, to a design by George S Repton (son of

Humphry Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

), replacing an earlier Manor House. Violin maker Henry Lye worked as a carpenter at the estate for fifty six years.

References

{{reflist, 30em Houses completed in 1840 Grade II listed buildings in Bath and North East Somerset