Registered Park or Garden: Minterne Magna (1000527)

MINTERNE WEST DORSET DORSET NGR: Site Reference Number: 1507 Grade: II Date Registered: 19 DEC 1986 C18 landscape with lake and woodland, c.40ha, within larger woodland and agricultural estate. Early C20 planting of rare trees and shrubs. Minterne House built 1904-06 by Leonard Stokes for the 10th Lord Digby, on the foundations of an older house. Stable range mid-C19, by R H Shout, 50m to south-west; garden wall further to south-west, incorporating C18 gazebo. Park Bridge (Lady Eleanor's Bridge), late C18, for Admiral Robert Digby, 300m to south-east. Gateway with piers, iron gates, early C20, possibly by Stokes, 100m to north-west, with approach drive to north front of house. The ground at Minterne slopes generally down from north-west to south-east, with the house overlooking a valley to east, the course of a stream feeding a lake and several pools for c.1km through the estate. Beyond this valley, the ground rises to north-east to the long ridge of Little Minterne Hill. C18 landscaping by Admiral Robert Digby (1732-1815) from 1768-69 onwards. Extensive plantations on previously bare downland, and creation, or enlargement, of the main lake, 150m north-east of the house, and cascade and lesser pools downstream (crossed by Park Bridge). This landscape shown in Robert Sherborne's watercolours, 1801 (see Country Life, 21 Feb 1980). In later C19, considerable planting of rhododendron and azalea in woodland to south-east and south of the house, particularly to south-east beside the stream and lower pools. Following the building of Minterne House in 1904-06, this planting was enriched by additions of many trees and shrubs recently introduced by plant-hunters such as Wilson, Farrer and Kingdon-Ward. Many examples now (1986) mature, including Japanese maple, Davidia, Sequoia sempervirens and exuberant thickets of bamboo. References Country Life, 29 Apr 1902, 528-533; 21 Feb 1980, 498-501; 28 Feb 1980, 574-577. Newman J, Pevsner N, Dorset, 1972, 295-296. Oswald A, Country Houses of Dorset, 1959, 175. Paterson A, The Gardens of Britain, 2, 1978, 37-38.

Record last edited

Nov 26 2021 6:43AM