Listed Building record MDO6393 - Witchampton Manor House

The ruins of a former manor house of 13th century origin. The manor house was converted into a farm building in the 18th century and became runious in the early 19th century. Parts of the runined structure are visible on aerial photographs and were digitally plotted during the Dorset Stour Mapping Project.

The surviving ruins represent two connected two-storeyed wings forming an L-shaped plan, both of 13th century date, although built in separate phases. Of these south and west wings, the latter is the earlier; attested by the position of a vertical straight joint formed between the two, which is visible on the inside wall face, but masked by a buttress on the exterior south face. A third block, the narrower east wing, projected north from the east end of the south wing, the main evidence for which is an isolated pier of flint wall at the internal angle of the south and east wings. No more than c 40% of the walls of these wings survives above ground and, since the building was converted to agricultural lean-to sheds in the later 18th century, all historic carpentry and most other details, which would add flesh to the bones, have been lost. However, the few surviving features indicate the importance of the building, at least during the earlier medieval period.

Previous reports have identified the narrower south wing as a first-floor hall and the west wing as solar, but an alternative possibility that a hall once adjoined the opposing (west) side of the west wing is discussed in the English Heritage Historic Buildings Report. This would imply that the south wing may not have been the hall and, instead, may have been a chamber range adjoining the solar (west wing). While such an interpretation is no less plausible than earlier ones, it is unsupported by more substantial evidence. Further investigation, perhaps by geophysical methods, may add to our understanding, but may prove inconclusive if the supposed former hall (to the west) was of timber-framed construction. The inclusion of a hall to the west of the standing ruins, with the implication also of services at that end, implies that the ruins formed a series of extended solar apartments. However, the limited scope of the visible evidence, in particular the lack of certainty surrounding the location of the hall, means that this is unproven. <3>

The ruins of a former manor house of 13th century origin. The manor house was converted into a farm building in the 18th century and became runious in the early 19th century. Parts of the runined structure are visible on aerial photographs and were digitally plotted during the Dorset Stour Mapping Project <4-5>. The building is marked as Abbey Barn (Remains of) on the OS 1st edition map.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 514427 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1966, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1965, 255-264 (Serial). SDO65.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 105-106 (Monograph). SDO129.

‘(2) FORMER MANOR HOUSE (99080633), ruin, originally of two storeys, has flint and rubble walls with ashlar dressings (Plate 83), repaired in places with brickwork. The roofs and floors have gone and the walls survive only in part. The building, of 13th-century origin, was modified in the 15th century when fireplaces were inserted. By the 18th century it had ceased to be a dwelling and the walls were used in the construction of farm buildings; they are now wholly disused and thickly overgrown. In the 13th-century house the lower storey appears to have comprised store-rooms, stables etc. Above was a first-floor hall with a solar at right-angles to it on the N.W. A small wing extended N.E. at the eastern end of the hall. There is some evidence for a former building, now gone, which extended S.E. from the northern end of the solar. Excavations in 1961 by students of Liverpool College of Building suggest that the solar range was built before the hall range (Dorset Procs., 87 (1966), 255–64).
The Monument is of considerable interest because of its early date and it is regrettable that it has been allowed to fall into ruin.
Architectural Description—The remains of the S.E. wall, about 3½ ft. thick, now stand close to the R. Allen although the watercourse formerly ran some distance to the E. The N.E. end of the surviving fragment retains the jambs of 15th-century fireplaces at ground and first-floor levels. Further S.W. the lower storey is pierced by a stone loop 2 ft. wide and 1 ft. high with a chamfered ashlar surround morticed for an iron grill; the upper storey retains the sill and part of one jamb of a window. Masonry projecting near the S. corner of the building indicates a former turret, circular or polygonal on plan and probably containing the stairs to the first-floor hall. Low down, the surviving fragment includes the splayed jamb and part of the arched head of a small window. The corner of the building has been rebuilt in thinner masonry than elsewhere, this wall filling the former opening to the turret.
The S.W. wall of the hall range is pierced in the lower storey by a barn doorway with a segmental brick arch, probably of the late 18th century. To the S.E. of the doorway there are traces of a former loop or ventilator with splayed jambs, now blocked up; above the loop the flint wall-face contains a neatly formed Heathstone relieving arch. Higher up and not quite central with the relieving arch is an original window of the first-floor hall; it is of one light with chamfered jambs and sill. The opening is slightly less than 2 ft. wide and there are traces of a transom, now gone; below the transom the jambs retain iron shutter hinges; above there are grooves for glazing and sockets for saddle-bars. The jambs survive to a height of 9 ft. and were formerly higher, there being no sign of lancet head or lintel. Internally the window is flanked by stone window-seats with moulded nosing. About 25 ft. further N.W. is a second hall window, uniform with that described (Plate 83). Below it are the voussoirs of the relieving arch of a former ground-floor loop, also as described, but in this case the original opening has been destroyed in the construction of a square-headed 15th-century window, about 2 ft. wide and 5¼ ft. high. Excavation in front of the barn doorway revealed the foundation of an original buttress which stood midway between the two hall windows. Also between the two windows, above the barn doorway, is a 15th-century fireplace with a rebated and hollow-chamfered square-headed stone opening, now blocked with brickwork. The N.W. end of the hall is marked on the S.W. front by an ashlar buttress of two stages with a weathered and roll-moulded plinth and weathered offsets. Further N., the S.W. wall of the solar range is strengthened by two 18th-century brick buttresses; in the lower storey they mask a pair of original square-headed loops with ashlar surrounds and splayed reveals with timber lintels. The solar on the first floor has a large S.W. window with a stone seat with chamfered nosing on three sides of the recess; the window-frame may have been of wood and perhaps slightly projecting since the splayed jambs retain no trace of a stone surround.
The northern part of the N.W. wall of the solar range has mostly gone, but the southern half retains, at the W. corner, a single-stage ashlar buttress with details as noted in the S.W. elevation. Adjacent, the lower storey has a well-preserved square-headed loop, as described; the upper storey retains the splays of a N.W. window. A large roll-moulded stone corbel projecting from the external wall-face slightly above first-floor level is of doubtful purpose; it could have supported a statue or some other ornamental feature. The N.E. end of the surviving part of the N.W. wall is reinforced with brickwork, probably the jamb of another barn doorway. From here to the N. corner the wall is represented by its foundations, revealed in the excavations of 1961.
The N.E. wall of the solar range has a ground-floor loop similar to those noted above, and in the upper storey it retains one jamb of a tall window. The N. and E. corners of the range were reinforced with square-set buttresses of which only the foundations remain. At the E. corner of the solar, the S.E. wall of the range was pierced by ground-floor and first-floor doorways with chamfered ashlar jambs and pointed heads; their northern jambs and the springers of the heads survive. The rebates are on the S.E. side, showing that the doors opened outwards with respect to the solar and its undercroft and indicating the former existence of an adjacent building, now gone; it may have been of timber and was probably earlier in date than the stone structures which remain. In line with the doors, a first-floor door-jamb on the inner face of the S.W. wall represents a doorway from the hall to the solar.
The surviving block of masonry at the angle between the hall and the N.E. wing retains the jamb of a ground-floor window to the wing, and also the jamb of an opening on the N.W., possibly a doorway which gave access to the hall undercroft from a central courtyard.’

<3> Arnold, A J, and Howard, R E, 2015, Ruins of former Manor House, Witchampton, near Wimborne, Dorset. Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers (Unpublished document). SDO14888.

<4> Royal Air Force, 17-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 FP 1118-9 (Aerial Photograph). SDO15923.

<5> National Monuments Record, 17-NOV-2005, NMR 24132/49-50 (ST9906/23-4) (Aerial Photograph). SDO16131.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 4:22PM