Registered Park or Garden: Kingston Maurward (1710)

REGISTER OF PARKS AND GARDENS OF SPECIAL HISTORIC INTEREST SY7191 1710 KINGSTON MAURWARD WEST DORSET DORSET II* NGR: Site Reference Number: Grade: Date Registered: 19 DEC 1986 C18 parkland and lake, together with early C20 formal gardens laid out by Sir Cecil and Lady Hanbury. Historic Development In the late C14 the manor of Kingston was acquired by the Grey family through marriage with the Maurward heiress. By the late C16, Christopher Grey had completed a new manor house (Oswald 1959; Pevsner and Newman 1972), but in the early C18 this house was superseded by a new mansion to its west built for George Pitt of Stratfield Saye, Hampshire (qv), who had married the heiress Lora Grey. The design of George Pitt’s mansion, which was begun c 1717 and completed by 1720, has been attributed to both Thomas Archer, and John James of Greenwich (Oswald 1959; Pevsner and Newman 1972), and remains uncertain. When George Pitt, a cousin of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, died in 1734, Kingston Maurward was inherited by his elder son, William. This William Pitt died without an heir in 1774, and the estate passed to his younger brother, John Pitt of Encombe, Dorset (qv), who had, since 1734, laid out an extensive park and pleasure grounds there with the advice of William Pitt, Lord Chatham. Between 1774 and his death in 1787, John Pitt made extensive alterations to both the house and its setting, laying out the park and forming the lake in the valley below the mansion. In 1787, Kingston Maurward was inherited by John Pitt’s elder son, William Moreton Pitt, who entertained King George III at the house during the King’s visits to Weymouth, and in 1794, apparently at the King’s suggestion, cased the early C18 brick mansion in Portland stone. Perhaps as a result of the cost of this, and other improvements, William Moreton Pitt sold his Encombe estate in 1806, but continued to live at Kingston Maurward until his death in 1836, when the estate was inherited by his son, William Grey Pitt. In 1845, William Grey Pitt sold Kingston Maurward to Francis Martin MP, whose wife educated the young Thomas Hardy, who was born at neighbouring Higher Bockhampton, in the house. The house later served as Hardy’s model for Knapwater House in his novel Desperate Remedies (1891). Francis Martin sold the estate in 1853 to James Fellows, who, with his widow and son, James Herbert Fellows (who took the name Benyon in 1897), owned the property until 1906, when it was sold to Major Kenneth Balfour. He parted with the estate in 1914, when it was purchased by Cecil Hanbury, who had made a considerable fortune in business in Shanghai, and who had inherited the Villa La Mortola on the Italian Riviera. Immediately after the conclusion of the First World War, Hanbury, later Sir Cecil Hanbury, and his wife, began to lay out a series of formal gardens to the west of the mansion. These gardens were substantially complete by 1920 (Mowl 2003). During the 1920s, Sir Cecil and Lady Hanbury entertained leading politicians and also Thomas Hardy, who had built his own house, Max Gate, c 1.25km south-west of Kingston Maurward. Sir Cecil Hanbury died in 1937. Lady Hanbury continued to live at Kingston Maurward, despite the requisition of the house and park during the Second World War, when it served as an important base in preparations for the D-Day landings. The troops relinquished the property in 1945, and in 1947 Lady Hanbury sold it to Dorset County Council for use as a Farm Institute; she herself moved to La Mortola to oversee an extensive post-war restoration programme. The Dorset Farm Institute, later to become an Agricultural and Horticultural College, opened at Kingston Maurward in 1949. The Institute undertook an extensive programme of repairs and consolidation, while from 1990 the gardens and pleasure grounds have been restored along historic lines (guidebook). The greater portion of the site remains (2004)in institutional use, while the C16 manor house is in private ownership. LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING Kingston Maurward is situated c 2.5km east-north-east of Dorchester and immediately east of the hamlet of Stinsford, to the south and east of the A35 road. The c 96ha site comprises some 4ha of formal gardens and informal pleasure grounds, a c 3ha lake, and c 89ha of parkland. The site is bounded to the west by domestic properties in Stinsford,and to the north-west by a C19 villa, Birkin House. To the north the site adjoins the A35 road, while to the east it adjoins agricultural land. To the south-east the site is bounded by properties in the village of Lower Bockhampton, and to the south the boundary is marked by a series of drainage channels which cross water meadows extending south from the site boundary to the River Frome c 500m south of the house. Towards its southern boundary, the site is crossed from east to west by a ridge of high ground on which stands the mansion, the C16 manor house, and the kitchen garden. The ground drops steeply towards the lake south of the house, while to the north of the house a valley extends through the park. There are extensive southerly views from the high ground within the site across the valley of the River Frome towards plantations associated with Came House c 1.75km south-south-west, while to the north there are views beyond the park towards Grey’s Wood c 2km north of the house. References A Oswald, Country Houses of Dorset (2nd edn 1959), pp 91-2, 154-5 N Pevsner and J Newman, The Buildings of England: Dorset (1972), pp 246-8 T Mowl, Historic Gardens of Dorset (2003), pp 144-8 Kingston Maurward Gardens, guidebook, (Kingston Maurward College, nd) Maps I Taylor, Map of Dorset, 1765 OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1886, published 1890 OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition revised

Record last edited

Apr 8 2013 1:49PM