Monument record MDO32958 - Garden at Poxwell Manor, Poxwell

The gardens around Poxwell House or Manor which is thought to have been built around 1600, but with later extensions and additions. The house was restored and remodelled in 1934, and the greater part of the current garden appears to date from this period, though built around and adapting earlier features. A striking survival from the seventeenth-century gardens is a stylish gazebo.

The gardens around Poxwell House or Manor built around 1600, with considerable extensions and additions being made throughout the seventeenth century. The house was thoroughly restored and partly remodelled in 1934. Buildings around the house include a seventeenth-century tiled barn and thatched former stables. The adjacent church was demolished in 1868 and the new church of St John the Baptist built on a site to the east. The churchyard and surrounding walls survive. <1>

Any surviving seventeenth-century gardens seem to have been removed or much altered by later changes. A key surviving element is the gazebo (often called the gatehouse), which Mowl commends for being the only ambitious and richly-crafted gazebo in the county. <2>

Mowl takes the completion date from a date stone on the gatehouse. It should be noted that the formal area which now lies between the house and the road is not shown on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map <3>. The walls surrounding it, though, appear to be the same age as the gatehouse (seventeenth century) but gateways to the north and south are very probably later additions. The rectangular rose garden with a rectangular pond in the centre is not shown on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map; Its style suggests that it was constructed at the time of or shortly after the 1934 restoration of the house.

A photograph of 1912 <4> shows a track with estate railings running from just north of the gatehouse to the road (A353), across the northern edge of what appears on the current (2007) digital map layers as a pond with ‘wavy’ edges and an island. The path can also be seen on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map. That the pond is a late twentieth century addition is confirmed by a photograph reproduced in the Dorset Year Book for 1983, showing a recently constructed pond <5>. Another slightly less irregular pond with island at the southern end of the garden is not shown on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map, and presumably it too is a late twentieth or twenty first-century addition. A smaller pond, in a more functional and casual style, and meandering water course appear on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map; the appearance of the area surrounding the older pond and water course on the 1902 map, and its present style suggest that there may have been a wilderness-type garden in this area. The water course appears rather ‘canal-ish’ on current (2007) digital maps, and it is tempting to ascribe an early date to this feature, but its meandering nature on the 1902 map makes it clear that this is a relatively recent development.

Setting: Poxwell Manor is situated at the northern end of Poxwell village, next to and to the west of the A353 road. The house faces the road. The garden is enclosed behind a combination of a low brick wall and estate railings. Another, taller wall encloses an area of formal gardens immediately in front of the house; a less formal area of meadow with ponds lies between the two walls. The garden and surrounding area are relatively flat, though situated on generally higher ground with long views to the south. The garden appears not to have been created with external vistas in mind. The walled garden in front of the house can, presumably, be viewed from the gazebo and the upper floors of the house, and gates in the north and south walls create longer views both from within and into the walled garden. The area to the rear of the house served as a farmyard.

Context: The gardens at Poxwell Manor seem to have been created as an embellishment of a relatively modest gentleman farmer’s establishment, which was acquired and improved in the seventeenth century by John Henning, a merchant from Poole. Though the gardens remain on a domestic scale, they are not pedestrian; the surviving gazebo is stylish and has considerable architectural value.

Significance: It is generally presumed that the seventeenth-century manor house is built on the site of an earlier building. No traces of or direct evidence for the existence of this earlier building or any gardens associated with it have been identified.

The seventeenth-century gardens were much altered by later changes, particularly a re-design of the gardens which appears to have occurred in the 1930s, following the remodelling and restoration of the house in 1934. A notable surviving element of the seventeenth-century garden is the hexagonal gazebo, sometimes called the gatehouse, set into the eastern side of the walled garden. The 1930s garden has no particularly outstanding features. Considerable alterations have taken place in recent years, notably the enlargement and creation of ponds in the informal area near the road. A swimming pool has been added. There is a tenuous connection with Gertrude Jekyll, in that she was aware of, and very probably visited the gardens at Poxwell, and refers to the walls and gatehouse as notable in an article on garden ornament published in Country Life in 1927 <6>.

1983, Photograph by HMS Osprey Photo Section reproduced in The Dorset Year Book for 1983 (Article in serial). SDO14486.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 260-262 (Monograph). SDO149.

‘(3) POXWELL HOUSE (60 yds. S.W.), of two storeys and attics, has walls of Portland ashlar and coursed rubble and tiled roofs with stone slates at the eaves (Plate 148).
Queen Elizabeth I granted Poxwell, which had belonged to Cerne Abbey, to Thomas Howard, Esq., who sold it to John Henning, merchant; it passed to the Trenchards of Lytchett Matravers and Wolfeton by the marriage of Elizabeth Henning to Col. Thomas Trenchard in 1695 (Hutchins III, 326). The house was built c. 1600. The intention appears to have been to build on an H-shaped plan with cross wings at the N. and S. ends and a central porch on the E. front; the S. cross wing however was never built except for the lower part of the projecting N. wall, which now forms part of the garden wall. Early in the 17th century a small addition was made in the angle between the N. cross wing and the main range; a little later in the century the N. cross wing was extended to form a long W. wing, which has been partly rebuilt. In 1934 the house was thoroughly restored and new roofs were built. The W. wing was remodelled and extended further to the W.; the S. wall of the main range was rebuilt; many of the windows were partly or completely restored, and the interior was modernised.
Poxwell House is an attractive country house of c. 1600 with a plan deriving directly from that of the typical late mediaeval manor house and, in design, drawing little upon the Classical repertory except in the symmetry of the intended E. front and in a few decorative features. The small brick gatehouse is unusual. …
Grounds and Outbuildings—The Garden E. of the house is enclosed by walls contemporary with the gatehouse described below; they are mainly of red brick built partly on a stone base, and the N. wall has a stone facing on the N. side; the brickwork has on the inside a network diaper in black headers, a moulded plinth and moulded dentils below the coping. In the S. wall is a doorway with moulded round stone head and continuous jambs; a corresponding doorway to the N. has an old stone head, but the jambs are of later brick. Over the N. doorway are three terracotta plaques, one bearing the crowned head of Anne Boleyn and the others with her badge, uniform with those at Lulworth, West, Monument (11).
In the middle of the E. wall is a hexagonal Gatehouse (Plate 149) dated 1634; it is of two storeys, built of brick with stone dressings and string-courses and with a pyramidal tiled roof; at each corner is a small round projection built of curved bricks and finished with a finial above a band of glazed bricks with embossed jewel ornament and the initial H. In the E. and W. walls are archways with moulded jambs and semicircular heads, one with a dated keystone. The upper floor is reached by an external staircase and has two-light windows to E. and W.
Barn, on S. side of courtyard W. of house, has walls of rubble with tiled roof; it is of eight bays and of the 17th century but the four bays to the E. are probably earlier than those to the W. In the E. end are original trusses of jointed-cruck construction; on the S.E. quoin are scratched the initials H H, presumably for Henry Henning. In the W. part only one original truss remains; it is also of jointed-cruck construction but with longer lower members than those of the E. trusses (cf. Winfrith Newburgh (3), Fig., Pt. I, p. lxv); in a door jamb is a stone, reset, bearing the initials R.H., presumably for Richard Henning. Richard was the Christian name of both the father and the grandfather of Henry Henning who died in 1699. To the W. of the barn are open-fronted sheds with a rubble back wall.
On the W. side of the courtyard is a range of outbuildings including Stables with jointed-cruck trusses also of the 17th century and with a 17th-century window of two lights under an eared label.’

<2> Mowl, T, 2003, Historic Gardens of Dorset (Monograph). SDO12480.

‘… the only ambitious and richly crafted gazebo in the county stands at Poxwell Manor … Completed in 1634, the gatehouse-gazebo is hexagonal, round-arched, pyramidal-roofed and has absurd bobble-tops on its six pinnacles. The room over its arch is reached by an outside stair and the impudent little building is the sole feature of any note in the brick walled garden.’

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1900, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch two (Map). SDO11594.

<4> 1912, Postcard (photograph) of Poxwell Manor, 1912 (Graphic material). SDO14485.

<6> 1914, Country Life Volume 35 (Article in serial). SDO13950.

<7> 2006, Sale advertisement in Western Gazette, 28th September 2006 (Article in serial). SDO14484.

<8> Jekyll, Gertrude, 1918, Book of Garden Ornament (Monograph). SDO13949.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 12:45PM