The Ball Place at Downside School

The Ball Place at Downside School, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Radstock, Somerset, BA3 4RJ

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Ball court wall of 1854; designed by Charles Hansom. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1487985
Date first listed:: 18-Jul-2024
List Entry Name:: The Ball Place at Downside School
Statutory Address:: The Ball Place at Downside School, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Radstock, Somerset, BA3 4RJ

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places. Almost 350,000 photos and stories have been added so far.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1487985
Date first listed:: 18-Jul-2024
List Entry Name:: The Ball Place at Downside School
Location Description:
Statutory Address 1:: The Ball Place at Downside School, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Radstock, Somerset, BA3 4RJ

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: The Ball Place at Downside School, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Radstock, Somerset, BA3 4RJ

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Somerset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Stratton on the Fosse
National Grid Reference:: ST6544650744

Summary

Ball court wall of 1854; designed by Charles Hansom.

Reasons for Designation

The Ball Place at Downside School, built in 1854 for racquet sport, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a striking and carefully-articulated structure constructed in high-quality materials and exhibiting craftsmanship; * as a remarkably complete specialist sport structure; * as an accomplished example of the work of Charles Hansom, a notable architect of the C19.

Historic interest:

* as an interesting example of a specialist ball game, shedding interesting light on the country’s more unusual sporting structures; * as part of the historic development of Downside Abbey, established by a Benedictine congregation in the early C19, who created an architectural ensemble of the highest order, employing the most prominent Roman Catholic architects of the period.

Group value:

* it forms part of highly significant group of monastery and school buildings, of which several are listed at the highest grades.

History

The Downside Estate was acquired in 1814 by a congregation of Benedictine monks compelled to leave their home in Douai, France at the end of the C18. The monks initially settled in Acton Burnell, Shropshire and from there, sought a base to establish a new monastery and school. Building began at Downside in the 1820s when the old manor house, Mount Pleasant, was adapted and extended with new school buildings erected in a number of phases throughout the C19 and C20. The monastic buildings and abbey church followed from the 1870s and into the C20.

The Ball Place at Downside School was built in 1854 to the designs of Charles Hansom and paid for by subscription. It is a massive stone structure for playing the school’s traditional ball game which has similarities with ball games played in Continental Europe since the post-medieval period. A similar, but even larger structure (Grade II), known as the Bounds Wall, stands at St Cuthbert’s College, a Catholic diocesan seminary at Ushaw, County Durham. It incorporates three ball places, courts and smaller racquet houses. The Downside game has some similarities to the game of fives, but uses a small, solid wooden bat, though it appears to have originally been played with the hand.

Charles Francis Hansom (1817-1888) was a prolific church architect who designed in the Gothic style. He was the younger brother of Joseph Aloysius Hansom with whom he was in partnership from 1854 until 1859.

Details

Ball courts, built in 1854 and designed by Charles Hansom.

MATERIALS: constructed of ashlar, probably white lias, and stone rubble.

DESCRIPTION: it is a monumental stone structure measuring some 30m wide and 12m high. It has a moulded plinth and a stone coping. The main elevation (south-east) comprises two tall playing walls, each with short angled wings and topped by stepped crenellation, and a lower, open-fronted central section which contains a blind niche or shelter that has a sloping timber boarded ceiling under a pointed-arched head. Over the arch the masonry is coursed, cut and squared rubble with a relieving arch and is surmounted with stepped crenellation. The rear (north-west) elevation is constructed of random stone rubble with ashlar quoins. Each court has a stepped buttress, and a central section that breaks forwards under a pentice slate roof.

The courts’ playing surface, which is now laid with tarmac, extends south-eastwards This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 10 October 2024 to reformat the text

Sources

Books and journals
Bellenger, A (Editor), Downside Abbey: an architectural history, (2011)
Pevsner, N, Foyle, A, The Buildings of England: Somerset: North and Bristol, (2011), 617-624
Websites
Hansom, Charles Francis (1817-1888) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 13 November 2023 from https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/48460
History of the School, accessed 6 November 2023 from https://www.downside.co.uk/about-us/history/
Other
Architectural Heritage Practice: Downside Abbey and School - a statement of significance (2021)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.