Listed Building record MDO11553 - Priest's House Museum, 23 High Street, Wimborne Minster

Late sixteenth or early seventeenth century hall house originally altered and extended in the eighteenth century. Walls of stone and stone-and-flint banding partly rendered with some timber framing. Tiled roofs with stone eaves courses.

The Priest's House is of 15-16th century date and is supposed to have been the residence of the priests attached to the Minster. <2>

Nos 5 & 6, High Street (The Priory), Grade 2. Two storeys, of stone, brick and tile, 16th century and later. (No authority for the name 'The Priory' was found). <3>

Priest's House (name confirmed) is of the early 16th century. It is used as a dwelling house and a shop. <4>

'The Priest's House' of two storeys, has walls partly of squared rubble, partly of flint and partly timber-framed. The roofs are tiled. It is a substantial town house of the early 17th century with 18th century additions. The house is now divided into two parts, that on the south with a ground-floor shop, the other with a museum of local antiquities.

An inscription in plaster in the parlour bears the initials 'IW' which may stand for John Woods, incumbent at the minster between 1604 and 1620. The name 'Priest's House' appears to have no documentary authority earlier than OS 1:2500 of 1862.

Full architectural description. <5>

The Priest's House, now a museum, is the only secular Medieval building surviving in Wimborne, and is possibly of about 1500, with 17th and 18th century alterations. <6>

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 scale, 1936 (Map). SWX1197.

(SZ 00979999) Priest's House (NR)

<2> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Object Name Book reference revision, Revision ONB 17 (Unpublished document). SDO17452.

<3> DOE (HHR), 1951, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest: Wimborne and Cranborne RD (Scheduling record). SDO17339.

<4> Wrathall, Reginald, Field investigator's comments RW, F1 RW 16-MAR-54 (Unpublished document). SDO18449.

<5> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 466-467 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<6> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 88-89 (Monograph). SDO129.

<7> Miles, D W H, 1994, The Tree-Ring Dating of the Priest's House Museum, 23-27 High Street, Wimborne Minster, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO14589.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 457894 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 31 2024 2:03PM