Listed Building record MDO13421 - Gate and Gate Piers to Stalbridge Park, Church Hill, Stalbridge

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 250 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘(4) Remains of the Manor House, now destroyed, are found in Stalbridge Park, 200 yds. W. of the church, on a gentle declivity with extensive views to the S. across the Stour valley. From Hutchins's engraving (III, opp. 670) the former house appears to have been of c. 1600. In Leland's time the manor house had been on the S. side of the church and the 17th-century building must therefore have been erected on a new site; it was demolished in 1822 and nothing remains except the park wall, a 17th-century gateway, earthworks, a walled kitchen garden and some fragments of stonework that are built into an adjacent farmhouse.
The Park Wall is of dry-laid coursed rubble, some 10 ft. high, with a rounded capping and a projecting drip-course. The Park Gateway (73311827) is of the 17th century and consists of two stout ashlar piers, in which alternate courses are rusticated, capped by modillion cornices above which rise stone lion-head crests (Plate 66). The gates are of wrought iron with spear-headed uprights and a top rail sweeping down in a segmental curve from the hinges to the meeting stiles. Inside the gateway the road is flanked by an avenue of elm trees. …’

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 1:20PM