Sutton Court (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Southetoun; Stowey Court

In the civil parish of Stowey Sutton.
In the historic county of Somerset.
Modern Authority of Bath and North East Somerset.
1974 county of Avon.
Medieval County of Somerset.

OS Map Grid Reference: ST59656045
Latitude 51.34178° Longitude -2.58020°

Sutton Court has been described as a certain Fortified Manor House, and also as a probable Pele Tower.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

Former fortified manor, now country house. Early C14 with additions and alterations in c.1450, 1558, c.1700 and an extensive restructuring and restoration by T.H. Wyatt in 1858-60. Squared and coursed sandstone rubble throughout with freestone and ashlar dressings, copings, slate roofs. North front comprises a central 3 storey C14 pele tower with taller circular stair turret and 2 storey ranges linking it to 1558 'Bess of Hardwick Building' to the left and a 4-bay 1858- 60 servants' wing of 3 storeys to the right. Windows to pele tower and right hand linking range are C15 of 2 cusped lights with hoodmoulds, some renewed, some relocated from other areas. 1858-60 doorway to tower. Windows to left hand linking range and 'Hardwick Building' are 4 and 6-light chamfered mullions. 2 storey 'Hardwick' range has diagonal offset buttresses. C18 battlements to pele tower, tall octagonal ashlar stacks. Manor built by William de Sutton, Elizabeth Hardwick, Lady St. Loe owned it in 1558 and the Wyatt restoration and rebuilding was carried out for Sir Edward Strachey. (Listed Building Report)

John Leland stayed at the 'old maner place' of Sir John St Loe and described several places in relation to their distance from 'Southetoun'. An earlier Sir John St Loe, either the one who built Newton castle and died in 1314 or his immediate successor, built a tall, square tower with a circular stair turret. A hall was built behind the tower in the late fifteenth or earlier sixteenth century, the beginning of the early Tudor transformation of the castle to a country house. (Dunning 1995)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1129576
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 198045.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MBN722.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Wikipedia entry
Books
- Emery, Anthony, 2006, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 3 Southern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 600-2
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 224
  Dunning, Robert, 1995, Somerset Castles (Somerset Books) p. 66
  Pevsner, N., 1958, Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol (Harmondsworth) p. 267
  Collinson, J., 1791, The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset (Bath) Vol. 2 p. 96 online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1910, Country Life Vol. 27 p. 126-131
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 429
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1910, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 5 p. 103 online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio