Monument record MDO3084 - Manor House, Winterborne Herringston

A licence to crenellate was issued for a manor at Herringston in 1336. It is thought that the manor house thus fortified was probably on the site of or in the immediate vicinity of the present house.

Herringston. (689881), of two storeys and attics has stone walls rendered in cement and roofs covered with slates. Walterus Heryng de Winterborne was granted a licence to crenellate his manor house in 1336 and the main structure of the present house is probably of this date though much altered: there are now no features visible that can be ascribed to a date earlier than the 16th century. The house was built round a courtyard of which the N. range and the N. parts of the E and W ranges were taken down at the beginning of the 19th century. A least of 1441, quoted in a MS of 1820 (at Herringston), refers to a Gatehouse, and the MS. also states that the N. range contained a large semicircular gateway over which was the date 1582. In 1513 the manor was acquired by John Williams, and Coker records that his grandson, Sir John Williams, who succeeded to the estate in 1569, 'by his building and other ornaments much beautified' the house; it is probable that he remodelled or partly rebuilt the house of Walter Heryng, increasing the width of the S range, and the plan has been so hatched, though the extent to which the walls of Walter Heryng's house survive is conjectural. Sir John formed the Great Chamber on the first floor, partly out of the original hall and partly out of a new extension S. of the original building; the plasterwork of the Chamber can be dated to 1616-1625 by the initials C.P. which accompany the Prince of Wales's feathers, but Sir John died in 1617 and an unfinished pilaster on the S. wall suggests that his death put an abrupt end to the embellishment of the Chamber. At the beginning of the 19th century further remodelling was carried out to the designs of Thomas Leverton (letters at Herringston). The buildings round the N. part of the courtyard, including a chapel were pulled down and the space between the curtailed E and W ranges was filled in with the present entrance hall, dining room and library. The hall and the W. range were heightened and covered with a new lower-pitched roof without attics. Later in the 19th century a porch was added to the N. front; in 1899 a substantial new wing was added on the E side of the house, and a conservatory and outbuildings have been added to the W. The decorated plaster ceiling and the carved panelling in the Great Chamber are remarkable. <2>

Herringston (name confirmed) remains as described by RCHM (Auth 2) and is in a very good state of preservation. There are no visible remains of the chapel, the site of which lies to the north of the present house. (see ground photographs) <4>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 68928808) Herringston [NR] (SY 68908811) Chapel [NR] (Site of) [NAT]

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 388 (Monograph). SDO149.

<3> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 479-81 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<4> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 02-JUN-80 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 451986 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Nov 13 2023 2:18PM