S for Stone Spouter & Stone Cotswold Slates

Today I visited a 19th century Victorian Gothic mansion which was abandoned mid-construction in 1873. It is hidden in a secluded Cotswold Valley and is now a Grade 1 Listed Building which has been saved from dereliction but will never be completed. Tools dropped by the Victorian builders, fireplaces suspended in space, timber scaffolding, builders' ladders - time itself has been suspended in Woodchester Mansion.

This is one of four major Gargoyles which conveys water away from the building as opposed to a Grotesque which is also a carved stone figure but has no other purpose than being decorative or perhaps supportive. Grotesques are known as Chimera or in the Somerset dialect as 'Hunkypunks'.

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