Alfoxton House

Alfoxton House
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or city	Holford
Country	England
Coordinates	51°09′50″N 3°12′31″W / 51.1638°N 3.2085°W / 51.1638; -3.2085
Completed	1710
Client	John St Albyn

Alfoxton House, also known as Alfoxton Park, was built as an 18th-century country house in Holford, Somerset, England, within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The present house was rebuilt in 1710 after the previous building was destroyed in a fire.

The poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy lived at Alfoxton House between July 1797 and June 1798, during the time of their friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Dorothy began her journals here in January 1798 but discontinued them 2 months later to recommence when the couple moved to the Lake District. These were posthumously published as The Alfoxden Journal, 1798 and The Grasmere Journals, 1800-1803.

The building was refenestrated and re-roofed in the 19th century. It has been changed and extended significantly since the time of the Wordsworths to turn it into a country hotel. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II listed building. During World War II it housed evacuees from Wellington House School Westgate on Sea in Kent.

Alfoxton House was built in the 18th century of rendered rubble stone, the main block being on a double-pile plan, i.e. two main rooms on each side of a central corridor. The house is two storeys high, with an attic that includes dormer windows. The frontage includes a central porch with columns, frieze and cornice in a Doric style. There is an extension to the left, originally an orangery, with a steep roof over a verandah. The wall includes the coat of arms of the St. Albyn family who owed the house for many years.