The Court House is a grade I listed house in Hale Lane,

Painswick Painswick is a town and civil parish in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, England. Originally the town grew from the wool trade, but it is now best known for its parish church's yew trees and the local Rococo Garden. The village is mainly ...

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 ...

, England, within the Cotswolds. The house was built in the late 16th century with additions in 1604, for Thomas Gardener on the site of an earlier manor house. The exact dates of the earlier house are not known, but the manor house of

Pain fitzJohn Pain fitzJohn (before 110010 July 1137) was an Anglo-Normans, Anglo-Norman nobleman and administrator, one of King Henry I of England's "list of Henry's new men, new men", who owed their positions and wealth to the king. Pain's family originate ...

, who gave his name to the village, stood on the site in the first half of the 12th century. The demolition of the house in 1445 and subsequent rebuilding is recorded. It is known that King

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

stayed at the house during the

Siege of Gloucester The siege of Gloucester took place between 10 August and 5 September 1643 during the First English Civil War. It was part of a Royalist campaign led by King Charles I to take control of the Severn Valley from the Parliamentarians. Follow ...

in 1643. The house is still believed to be haunted by the king and his troops. The

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

house has a two-storey front with a three-storey return wing supported by

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es. The name "Court House" relates to the room used as a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

with cells in the cellar beneath the rest of the building which held the prisoners awaiting trial. The garden is surrounded by an 18th-century wall which is long and high, and includes a set of 11 semicircular steps near the house. Above the roof are stacks of tall chimneys. A path to the parish church crosses the garden. In 1942 a major sale of the contents of the house was held. The house itself was sold in the 1960s, and again in 2009 as a private house. After extensive renovation the house and its later 20th century additions is now used as a hotel.

References

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