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Spire House, Dacre
Spire House
civil parish:-   Dacre (formerly Cumberland)
county:-   Cumbria
locality type:-   buildings
locality type:-   folly
coordinates:-   NY46263128
1Km square:-   NY4631
10Km square:-   NY43


photograph
BQT76.jpg (taken 11.6.2009)  
photograph
BLP18.jpg (taken 4.2.2006)  

evidence:-   old map:- OS County Series (Cmd 58 2) 
placename:-  Spire House
source data:-   Maps, County Series maps of Great Britain, scales 6 and 25 inches to 1 mile, published by the Ordnance Survey, Southampton, Hampshire, from about 1863 to 1948.

evidence:-   probably old map:- Donald 1774 (Cmd) 
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, 3x2 sheets, The County of Cumberland, scale about 1 inch to 1 mile, by Thomas Donald, engraved and published by Joseph Hodskinson, 29 Arundel Street, Strand, London, 1774.
image
D4NY43SE.jpg
?building, monument or boundary marker, cross on top 
item:-  Carlisle Library : Map 2
Image © Carlisle Library

evidence:-   database:- Listed Buildings 2010
placename:-  Spire House
source data:-  
courtesy of English Heritage
"SPIRE HOUSE / / / DACRE / EDEN / CUMBRIA / II / 73773 / NY4626431285"
source data:-  
courtesy of English Heritage
"Farmhouse. Early C18 with late C18 folly extension for the 11th Duke of Norfolk. Cement rendered walls, under Welsh slate roof with coped gables and left kneeler; banded sandstone ashlar chimney stacks. Extension of dressed pink sandstone with string course, eaves cornice, battlemented parapets and V-jointed quoins. Polygonal leaded spire within parapets. 2 storeys, 3 bays with right projecting polygonal extension. Farmhouse has sash windows, one double on ground floor and smaller right casement firewindows, all within painted stone surrounds. Left lean-to has plank door in plain opening. Extension has front wall canted forward with a central sash window under a pointed-arched sash window; in flanking parts blind round-headed recesses under twin pointed-head windows, all in raised stone surrounds. Right return wall has a blind circular recess. The spire is on a battlemented polygonal base with blind pointed-arched recess. Rear of the house has C19 extension with plank door, 2- and 3-light windows, all under hoodmoulds which are continuous on the ground floor. One of a group of 3 folly farmhouses in the Greystoke area. See Barbara Jones, Follies &Grottoes, 1974, pp.303-4; Country Life, 30 June 1983, pp.1796-1800. Adjoining farm buildings are later and not of interest."

hearsay:-  
The tenant told the Duke of Norfolk, his landlord, that his religious beliefs did not require attendance at church, his house would serve. So the duke erected a churchlike house for him.

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