Locally Registered Garden: Poxwell Manor (DDO19724)

Brief description of site: Poxwell Manor is on the western side of the A353 six miles north east of Weymouth. The land rises all around but Poxwell is on level ground near the road. The main front faces east with a walled garden in front of the house and a two tier octagonal gatehouse in the middle of the wall facing the road. The house is mainly symmetrical although the south wing, which would have completed the composition, was not built. The house has a distinctive courtyard layout and is currently approached from the north with additional gardens outside the walled area on the south and east. A sundial in the garden was included in Gertrude Jekyll’s book of Garden Ornament. Brief history of site: In the Domesday Book of 1086 Poxwell is listed as part of the holdings of the Abbey of Cerne and it remained in their ownership until the dissolution of the monasteries. Subsequently the land was leased out, and the lessees the Poxwell Family, gave the manor its name. In 1562 Elizabeth I granted Poxwell to Thomas Howard of Bindon and in 1575 he sold the property to John Henning. John Henning built the house around 1600 of Portland stone, the gatehouse and walled garden were built some 30 years later. The house was inherited in1934 by Lt. Col. and Mrs. Lane from his mother. They restored the house and created the current garden. The house remained with descendants of John Henning until 1987. Significance: A notable surviving element of the 17th century garden is the rare hexagonal gazebo/gatehouse set in the original garden wall. Notable remodelling in the 20th century. Sources: Country Life vol 35 1914 pp558-32 G Jekyll Garden Ornament 1918 p. 32 A Oswald Country Houses of Dorset 1935 (1959) Pg 92, 93 Timothy Mowl Historic Gardens of Dorset 2003 pg 39, 40 III. P.40

Record last edited

Apr 13 2016 5:10PM