Monument record MDO37624 - Gardens around Clifton House, Clifton Maybank

The gardens around Clifton House the principal building in the parish of Clifton Maybank. The house was built around the middle of the sixteenth century, possibly by Sir John Horsey (1546-1564), but the greater part was demolished in 1786 and additions made on the north and east sides in the early twentieth century. John Leland wrote of an ‘ancient pleasance garden and bowling allée’ at Clifton in 1534. Some elements of the sixteenth century, perhaps even fifteenth century, gardens may survive in the vicinity of the house, and more extensive seventeenth-century gardens and perhaps also a small park survive over a wider area around the house. Features identified as possible surviving elements of earlier gardens include a bowling allée and parch marks of a formal garden thought to be of sixteenth-century date, and walls and a garden house or houses. Consideration of modern maps and the present topography suggest that any surviving parkland will tend to be in areas to the west and north-west of the present house. The gardens are known to have been restored in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the present owners have made some changes.

The present house may be the surviving east wing of the original building, with the main block extending to the west from the middle of the present building . <1>

According to Leland’s Itinerary <2> about the time of Edward IV, Ormond, Earl of Wiltshire seized Clifton and held it by force with a bogus title. He is said to have started work on massive foundations for stabling and domestic buildings, with the intention of building a castle, but shortly afterwards the property was restored to the Horsey family. So large building works were under way at Clifton, and presumably on or somewhere in the vicinity of the site of the present house, in the fourteenth century. The Dorset Gardens Trust suggest that a large bank, running west-east to the north of the present house, and in part coinciding with current field boundaries, may be connected. In places the bank coincides with what appears to be the remains of a wall with a rubble core on which stone facing survives. Only the foundations of the western section are visible.

The occurrence of horses’ heads as decorative motifs in the garden plays upon the connection with the Horsey family - on the gate piers to the west of the bowling green, for example, though it should be noted that this gateway may have been created in the late nineteenth century, possibly by moving a gateway from elsewhere, and was restored by the present owner. The gate itself is new, and created to the present owner’s design. The horse heads, therefore, were not necessarily originally set on gate piers and, though possibly sixteenth century in date, may not necessarily have any association with the earlier house or garden <3>.

An impression of the style of the house and surrounding park and gardens in the seventeenth century is given in a passage quoted by Hutchins <4> from a manuscript in the possession of Mr Russell of Beaminster said to be dated 1648 and quoted by NL (not known) in a letter of 21 May 1786 to The Gentleman’s Magazine. <4>

The Dorset Gardens Trust suggest that the garden ‘of the south-east side of the greene court [front of house], towards the river, a large garden’ described in the 1648 manuscript was in the field to the east of the house, and at a lower level, and that earthworks observed on aerial photographs <5> and from the ground may well be the remains of this garden. The ‘… great copice wood, in which there is a competent number of deere’ may be Clifton Wood, which would appear to be in the location described.

In the late eighteenth century parts of the house were demolished, and key elements sold and re-erected elsewhere. For example, a considerable part of the south front is now at Montacute in Somerset, incorporated into what is known as the ‘Clifton corridor’. A map of 1780/81 <7> shows the house before demolition – the eastern side of the house was demolished, and the walls at the edge of the terrace to the east of the present house appear to be remnants of this part of the house, as blocked windows can be seen in the terrace wall. According to the present owner the gatehouse was dismantled in 1800 <3>. In his book Country Houses of Dorset, Arthur Oswald, referring to Hutchins, says that the gatehouse was sold to Lord Paulet in 1800, and may have been moved to Hinton St George, Somerset; its present whereabouts are not known <8>. The 1648 manuscript in quoted in The Gentleman’s Magazine refers to castellated walls, and an early eighteenth-century sketch probably by Sir James Thornhill of ‘Mr Harvey’s lodge at Clifton in Dorset’ shows a castellated wall on either side of the gatehouse. The sketch is believed <3> to date to around 1720, following changes in ownership.

Parts of the estate were sold for railway development in the late eighteen forties, and the railway cuts across what is presumed to be the northern part of the park. According to the present owner, the house and grounds were restored in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century <3>.

In his book 'Historic Gardens of Dorset <9> Timothy Mowl provides some information about the degree to which earlier garden features have survived, and suggests that the influence or indeed active involvement of Thomas Archer (who lived at Hale Park, Hampshire between 1715 and 1743) should not be ruled out. Mowl implies that Hale Park is close to Clifton Maybank; it is, in fact, some distance away.

Examination of vertical aerial photographs taken in 2005 reveals that the garden house to which Mowl refers is at the southern end of the terrace, and the south-western corner of the bowling green. The outline of the bowling green, with adjacent terraces, walls, and gate piers can also be seen on aerial photographs <10>. Dutch style gardens would not be unlikely; there are Dutch elements, such as tiles and the arms of Amsterdam on two firebacks, in the house, and the owner of the time, Mr Harvey, is known to have had significant business interests in Holland.
The survival of these features has been confirmed by members of the Dorset Gardens Trust, who visited in 2008. The walls are brick with stone at the base, and appear to be contemporary with the garden house. The Dorset Gardens Trust suggest that the stone is the remains of earlier walls reduced to provide a base for later brick walls. The reasoning behind this, beyond the change in materials, is not clear (to the HER at the time of writing this description), in particular in regard to how this re-building relates in sequence to the Trust’s further suggestion of a second garden house (discussed below). As research progresses, the Trust is coming to the view that the sixteenth/seventeenth century development of the garden may be more complex than Mowl supposes. For example, they suggest that there was (taking the shape of the plot into consideration) a bowling allée down the western side, rather than a double bowling green. The square area west of the house is now called ‘The Bowling Green’. It is not known when this use started, but the passage quoted by Hutchins <4> from a manuscript in the possession of Mr Russell of Beaminster said to be dated 1648 and quoted by NL (not known) in a letter of 21 May 1786 to The Gentleman’s Magazine refers to ‘…of the south-east side of the greene court, towards the river, a large garden. Of the south-west side of the green court is a large bowling greene, with fower mounted walks about it, all walled about with a batteled wall, and sett with all sorts of fruit’ which appears, taking the perambulation in order, to correspond to this area. In addition, slight parch marks visble on aerial photographs taken in 2005 in the present lawns suggest that there may have been a formal Elizabethan garden here with crossing paths and a central circular feature, possibly a fountain <10>. The possibility of there having been a formal garden is perhaps further strengthened by the presence of a large, fancy window on the top floor of the house, and overlooking this area. However, the Dorset Gardens Trust feel that this does not necessarily offer direct corroboration, as the window may have been moved here in the course of alterations made by Mr Harvey in 1659, since Hutchins refers to Mr Harvey having the house repaired, sashed and modernized.

The Dorset Gardens Trust suggest the terraces around the bowling green suggest it may have been a boulengrin. Boulengrin is a corruption of bowling green but does not refer to playing bowls. It was a sunken lawn bounded by sloping banks and could be all turf or decorated with broderie and plate-bande work (the border of a parterre which consists of either a strip edged with box containing flowers or a double strip, one containing flowers or grass and the other sand).

The site of the bowling allée, on the western side of the square bowling green, has been converted to a garden with borders. This does not appear on the 1780-81 map and, according to the Dorset Gardens Trust, the style of the garden suggests that it is an addition made in the 1880s or later. The raised walk was ‘broken’ on the eastern side to make a view from the house; family photographs dated 1909 appear to be ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots. In the early twentieth century a rose garden was planted here; the rose garden has been removed since 2000. <3><7>

Observations of breaks and changes in style of the brickwork at the northern end of the terrace, that is the north-western corner of the bowling green, have led the Dorset Gardens Trust to suggest that there was a second and more substantial garden house here, possibly an earlier structure contemporary with the sixteenth-century bowling green. A sale map of 1780 or 1781 <7> appears to show a structure in this location which may be this second garden house.

This map also shows a mill with a millpond behind, and a series of at least three long, narrow ponds in fields to the north of Clifton House. The Dorset Gardens Trust confirm that these ponds could be seen as lower-lying damp rushy areas (rather than fully-formed ponds) when they visited in 2008, and describe them as fishponds. In view of the supposed Saxon and medieval use of the site before the building of the sixteenth-century house, these ponds may be medieval in origin. The closeness of the site of the mill (assumed to have been in use in the medieval period) would tend to substantiate this. However, there is at present no direct evidence to date these features earlier than the later eighteenth century.
The sale map of 1780 or 1781 <7> shows one earlier avenue running east-west across the park to the west of the house, which appears to have been replaced by later avenues on slightly different lines seen on later maps and aerial photographs. The sale map shows another avenue running diagonally south west – north east across the park to the south west of the house; this early avenue does not appear on the 1887 Ordnance Survey map. An avenue on the 1887 Ordnance Survey map <12> is believed to be the remnants of the earlier avenue, and appears to have been made double in places. A line on the 1780 or 1781 sale map curving through fields north of Clifton House is possibly another former avenue, leading through the park. This line can be picked up on modern maps and is visible on recent aerial photographs.

An orchard to the north of the house, and another on an island between the two arms of the river, appear on the sale map of 1780 or 1781 <7> and the 1904 Ordnance Survey map <13>. The Dorset Gardens Trust visits to the site indicate that here are no longer orchards in these areas, but the island was recently re-planted with cider apples <3>.

The 1780-1781 map <7> does not appear to show a kitchen garden in its present location. The site of earlier kitchen gardens is not known.

The Dorset Gardens Trust also noted a nineteenth century water works for the generation of power during a DGT site visit. The remains of a wheel and other gear survive within the structure which, it appears, was both water driven and designed to run machinery to pump water up to the farmyard and house beyond.

A Victorian conservatory attached to the house on the western side has now gone. The present owner has family photographs taken in 1909 which show a small circular drive to the south of the house, and the conservatory in the background.

The Dorset Gardens Trust note a small 1920s-style Dutch garden immediately adjacent to the house on the western side. The informed viewer can discern this on recent aerial photographs <10>. In the late twentieth century a small circular pond with a statue of otters was added to the Dutch Garden <3>. The Dorset Gardens Trust describe the Dutch garden as being one of several Edwardian garden features; the nature and degree of survival of the other features is not known (to the HER at the time of writing).

The outline of the park as shown on the HER map is intended to encompass surviving traces of parkland features identified in the course of discussions with the Dorset Gardens Trust. It does not include those parts of the former park north of the railway line, and now in Somerset. It seems very likely that the sixteenth-century park, for example, extended some way to the south.

Setting: The house is situated within a loop of the river Yeo on high ground and close to the edge of a sudden drop overlooking the river and to the east. The surviving formal gardens occupy a relatively small area immediately to the west of the present house. The landscaped park lies to the west and originally extended to the north, now truncated by the railway. The house would have been visible in dramatic fashion from the east, but more softly from the parkland. There is a gentle rise westwards from the house to a distant gate, then the ground falls away towards the river. There are relatively few surviving traces of parkland planting, though some field boundaries and tracks preserve the line, and in places the fabric, of parkland features.

An ‘eycatcher’ is formed by the avenue to the west, the gate to the gardens, and between the south end of the house and the building, leading to the tower of Bradford Abbas church on the skyline. This was probably created as part of the works carried out around 1909.

Context: The gardens at Clifton Maybank were at the forefront of garden design of the time, as befitting the status and connections of the owner. The boulengrin, for example, was a continental innovation. The gardens are one of very few examples in the county from this period and, in terms of scale and grandeur, would have been comparable with the gardens of Cranborne Manor. The subsequent decline of the house and gardens, along with the family’s fortunes, has meant that the gardens have survived to some extent unaltered and largely unrecognised.

Significance: Though much altered, and now a little run down, there is potential at Clifton Maybank for the survival of significant below-ground archaeological remains relating to earlier gardens of considerable grandeur, notably from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, some elements of these gardens remain as surviving structures within the present garden. The garden house, associated walls, and remains of a possible second garden house are important because there are few surviving examples from this period, and they have group value. The boulengrin may be the only known surviving example of this period in the county. Clifton Maybank had links with important figures in history, particularly in the later medieval and Tudor period, and this gives added significance to any surviving remains.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 98-99 (Monograph). SDO97.

<2> Chandler, J, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Monograph). SDO14273.

<3> Personal communication, 1998, 2007 (Verbal communication). SDO14276.

Personal communication from the owner to the Dorset Gardens Trust surveyor in 1998, and on subsequent visits in 2007 and 2008. Subsequently relayed to the HER.

<4> Hutchins, J, 1873, The history and antiquities of the County of Dorset. Volume 4. 3rd edition (Monograph). SDO10245.

‘A capital messuage consists of a faire yellow freestone building, partly two and partly three stories, a faire hall and parlour, both waynscotted, a faire dyning roome and withdrawinge room, and many good lodgings, a kitchen adjoining backwarde to one end of the dwelling-house, with a faire passage from it into the hall, parlour, and dyninge room, and sellars adjoynynge. In the front of the house a square green court, and a curious gatehouse with lodgings in it standinge with the front of the house to the south; in a large outer court three stable for oxen and kine, and all houses necessary. Without the gatehouse paled in a large square greene, in which standeth a faire chappell; of the south-east side of the greene court, towards the river, a large garden. Of the south-west side of the green court is a large bowling greene, with fower mounted walks about it, all walled about with a batteled wall, and sett with all sorts of fruit; and out of it into the feildes there are large walkes under many elmes orderly planted. There are several orchards and gardens about the house, 14 acres well planted. In the backside of the house there is a brew-house, bakehouse, dayry house, and all other necessary howses and lodgings for servants, and a faire double pigeon house and a corne mill. The river runs through all the lands neere three miles, and encircleth the house all a goode distance, savinge at the east itt runnes by the garden next the parlour, in which river there is plenty of pike, carpes, and other river fish. Behind the house, towards the north-west, there is from the house an easy and dry ascent into the hill where the warren is, and under the edge of that hill, and upon a part of that hill, very pleasant and many ashes, and coppice walkes by the river side also. And all the countrey north of the houses open champaign sandy fields belonging to Bradforde, very dry and pleasant for all kinds of recreation, huntinge, and hawkinge, and profitable for tillage. To the south and west, in the front of the house, is a rich deepe soil, where lyeth the pasture and meadow, and part of the arable, and the great copice wood, in which there is a competent number of deere belonginge to the demeasnes, into which there is a descent from the house, which standeth upon a very sandy hill ground, and hath a large prospect east, south, and west over a very large and pleasant vale …’

<5> Google Earth, XX-XXX-2005, EARTH.GOOGLE.COM (Aerial Photograph). SDO12698.

<6> Dorset Gardens Trust, 2008, Photographs of the gardens at Clifton Maybank (Photograph). SDO14280.

<7> 1826, Map from the Appointment and Releast of the Manor of Clifton Maybank (Map). SDO14275.

<8> Oswald, A, 1959, Country Houses of Dorset (Monograph). SWX2642.

<9> Mowl, T, 2003, Historic Gardens of Dorset (Monograph). SDO12480.

‘Clifton Maybank, a much grander house [than Woolbridge Manor], has been so much looted architecturally … that it is unfair to criticise its grounds. There was certainly a very ugly Jacobean gatehouse, maliciously attributed to Inigo Jones. What survives is that typical feature of the period, a bowling green, double-sized and flanked on two sides by raised earth terraces for spectators. Next to it, on its north side within stone walls for protection, is the equally standard Kitchen Garden.’ and ‘… a rather sober Baroque Garden House was built at one end of the Jacobean terrace overlooking the double Bowling Green. It is possible that when it was put up, the green had been turned over to parterres in the Franco-Dutch mood. The name of Sir James Thornhill comes naturally to mind as the architect of the Garden House, but nothing has been proven.'

<10> GetMapping, 2005, Digital vertical aerial photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDO12563.

<11> Dorset Gardens Trust to the Dorset Historic Environment Record (Verbal communication). SDO14281.

<12> Ordnance Survey, 1864, 1886, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch one (Map). SDO10239.

<13> Ordnance Survey, 1900, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch two (Map). SDO11594.

Record last edited

Jun 20 2024 2:19PM