"Quickies" 15 - The Round House

The Round House is just on the edge of the village of Stanton Drew which is more famous for a much larger, older, and rounder structure which I will feature in a later post.

The Round House is a former Turnpike Trust Toll Cottage. This is the reason that it lies on a traffic island, marooned by roads on all sides. You have probably noticed that it isn't actually round. The two storey thatched cottage is in fact hexagonal and is built in the Cottage Orné style. This style dates to the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

English Heritage defines the term as "A rustic building of picturesque design." Cottages ornés often feature well-shaped thatch roofs with ornate timberwork. Wikipedia

This Cottage Orné was, however, not the usual folly just designed as a decoration to a country estate, but a building with a purpose. It was built around 1793 by the West Harptree Turnpike Trust and served as a toll house when turnpikes were in use. This trust was created in 1793 to turnpike roads connecting the southern sections of the Bristol Turnpikes. Its main responsibilities were two roads through West Harptree and a branch road to Chew Magna.

In the 1850s the cottage was home to the Burridge family who acted as the toll collectors until the Turnpike Trust was abolished in 1876.

The cottage was listed Grade 2 by English Heritage as late as 1986, so we are lucky it survived unaltered.

In fact it appears in an official report of unfit housing of 1933. The report recommended local properties that were unfit for habitation be demolished and the Toll House, as it was then, got a special mention of a suggested reprieve from demolition as long as the owner committed to it being uninhabited.

Somerset Guardian and Radstock Observer - Friday 17 November 1933

FUTURE OF OLD TOLL HOUSE. The report added that the house mentioned at Chew Magna was the Old Toll House at Stanton Drew. This was an extremely old and interesting building, undoubtedly of historic value. It was quite unfit for habitation, but in view of its antiquity and historic value, Dr. Brew suggested that, in lieu of demolition, the Council should seek an assurance from the owner that it should not in future be occupied as a dwelling house. The whole list comprised a total of 23 houses to be classed under heading " A," which were recommended for demolition. Under heading "B" was appended a list of some 65 houses, all of which had defects of various types, but they were houses which could be made fit for habitation at reasonable cost. It was proposed that notices be sent to the owners requiring these defects to be remedied, and the houses made fit.

Today the thatched roof is surmounted by a pair of boxing hares.

Boxing hares, often depicted in art and popular culture, represent a specific behavior where hares, particularly during the breeding season, engage in a "boxing" match. This behavior is actually a mating ritual, where females fend off amorous males. The imagery of boxing hares is popular in various art forms.

A pouch hung on a hook over the door was used by coach drivers to pay the toll. The bracket for the pouch still remains. This goes some way to explaining why the front of the cottage is so close to the edge of the road. A coach driver, sitting on the top of the coach would not have needed to dismount to pay his toll.

On the ground floor are a kitchen and shower room, and there is a bedroom on the first floor. The total living space is 24 square meters.

To the left of the front door, almost hidden by the climbing roses, is an elderly, tiny, decommissioned Edward VII letter box.

Toll houses were built next to the turnpikes as someone needed to be collecting the tolls 24 hours a day. The standard toll house design adopted in the 1820s was of a small, single-story cottage with a polygonal bay front, like The Round House. Turnpikes were generally placed outside the town so that local businesses did not have to pay the toll. However, the remoteness of their locations meant that the toll houses were vulnerable to theft and as a precaution, they tended to be fitted with bars and a safe.