The Ball Place at Downside School

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
Pevsner, N, Foyle, A, The Buildings of England: Somerset: North and Bristol, (2011), 617-624
Bellenger, A, Downside Abbey: an architectural history, (2011)

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)

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