Listed Building record MDO30894 - The Manor House, Pamphill

A late 17th century manor house, enlarged in the 18th and early 20th century. Two storeys and attics; the original building had a T-shaped plan, the rear kitchen wing was extended later. Lower service range behind this to west. The main east elevation has a projecting centre bay.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 47-48 (Monograph). SDO129.

'(5) THE MANOR HOUSE (98980063), of two storeys with attics, has brick walls and tiled and stone-slated roofs. It was built by Matthew Beethell, steward to Sir Ralph Bankes, probably at the end of the 17th century (Hutchins III, 236), and has additions of the mid 18th and early 19th centuries and later.

The E. front (Plate 60) is symmetrical and of seven bays with the three projecting middle bays crowned by a curvilinear gable with an urn finial. The doorway has a moulded ashlar architrave and a pedimented entablature. The square-headed sashed ground-floor windows are surmounted by blind lunettes outlined with brick arches (cf. (7)); each arch springs from a brick plat-band and has a boldly projecting keystone with foliate decoration. The windows of the upper storey retain transomed two-light casements with wooden surrounds and leaded lights; the flat brick arches of the window-heads have carved keystones, as in the lower storey, those of the central pavilion decorated with masks. The attic gable has a square-headed window with a balustraded apron. The hipped two-light dormer windows flanking the gable appear to be original. Symmetrically placed behind the roof ridge are two chimneystacks with panelled sides and bold cornices.

In the S. elevation of the E. range the ground-floor and first-floor openings are as in the E. front; the western part of the elevation is modern. In the N. elevation, to the W. of the E. range is a mid 18th-century N.W. wing of three bays with low square-headed casement windows in the lower storey (two of them altered) and with three tall sashed windows on the first floor; the first-floor plat-band and the eaves of the wing are at a higher level than those of the E. range. The W. elevation is masked by an early 19th-century single-storeyed service wing.

Inside, the plan is of class T. The principal rooms have moulded cornices, skirtings and other joinery of 17th-century date, and the hall has a panelled dado and a chimneypiece with a panelled overmantel on which a landscape is painted. In the inner hall, moulded archivolts are supported by pilasters and Tuscan three-quarter columns. The oak staircase has square newel-posts with ball finials, close strings, moulded handrails and stout vase-shaped balusters. Some first-floor chambers have 18th-century panelling. Two window panes have scratched inscriptions of 1740 and 1741. The roof has collared tie-beam trusses.'

<2> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map, 1978 (Map). SDO17396.

(ST 98980063) Manor House (NAT)

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1993, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1992, 244 (Serial). SDO92.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209499 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 12:29PM