Building record MWX4102 - New Mills, Corfe Castle

Building marked as New Mills on first edition OS map, also marked on the second edition. <1>

<1> Papworth, M, 1992, Middlebere, Corfe Castle Estate, Dorset. Wessex Region, 26 (Unpublished document). SWX1394.

The ruin of a cottage is 10.5m long and 3m wide with walls 0.6m wide. The E. gable wall survives to a height of 3.5m. The cottage is divided in half by a cross wall with a doorway in the south end. A window created out of a blocked doorway is visible in the centre of the north wall of the north room (see fig 13). A building is shown here on the 1586 map (Treswell) and lies within Mr Uvedall’s land but on the 1775 map (Woodward) it is called “the poor of Corfe Castle’s house”. Hutchins (1863) records that “Edmund Uvedale, knight, by will proved 1621, devised all his lands of Sharpford, New Mills and Derby lands in the parish of Corfe Castle, to trustees towards the maintenance of the almshouses of Corfe Castle”. The land now appears to be part of Scotland Farm. The Estate boundary fence appears to follow the edge of the small enclosure the building lies within on the east and south sides. The ruin is made of Purbeck limestone (70% rough burr stone, 15% ashlar) and heathstone (15%). Many of the stones are reused from Corfe Castle which dates the building to the late 17th century. It occupies the site of the earlier building shown on Treswell’s map. Pottery recovered from the clearence of a drainage ditch when the site was visited 17/7/1992 dates from the 16th – 20th centuries.

Record last edited

Oct 3 2021 4:01PM