Listed Building record MDO11595 - Old Manor Farm House, Leigh Road, Wimborne Minster

A sixteenth-century farm house, altered and partly rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and enlarged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The building has brick walls with stone details and a tiled roof with stone eaves courses. It is partly surrounded by the remins of a moat.

The house is now known as Manor House Farm and is partly surrounded by the remains of a moat. No information is known regarding the date of the house, but its general appearance is post - 1688. No information regarding a manor house was obtained, or of any previous house standing on the site.

The remains of the moat consist of part of the east and south sides, water-filled and fed by a stream running into the
south-east corner and out of the south-west.

The west side is poorly defined but may be traced as a slope 3.0m. wide. There is no trace of the remainder of the east or the north side. <2>

SZ 02169995. Old Manor Farm is of two storeys with brick walls and tiled roofs and is of 16th century origin, rebuilt in the 17th century. The moat formerly enclosed an island 100 feet square with a wet ditch 15-30 feet wide and four feet deep. The 1845 Tithe Map shows the moat complete, with an entrance causeway on the east. Today, only the west, south and part of the east sides remain. <4>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1884 (Map). SWX1540.

(SZ 02179996) Leigh Farm (NAT) Moat (NR)

<2> Swatridge, G C, Various, Field Investigators Comments GCS, F1 GCS 15-MAR-54 (Unpublished document). SWX1169.

<3> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map, 1974 (Map). SDO17396.

(SZ 02179996) Old Manor Farm (NAT) Moat (NR)

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 86-87 (Monograph). SDO129.

'OLD MANOR FARM (02189995), house, of two storeys with brick walls and tiled roofs with stone-slate verges, is of 16th-century origin. Above a plinth with a chamfered ashlar capping the E. front is of red brick with a diaper of blue header bricks. Flanking the southern of the two E. doorways are casement windows of four (originally five) square-headed lights with chamfered and ovolo-moulded timber mullions; similar openings of four lights are set symmetrically above the ground-floor windows. The N. bay of the E. front and the N. end wall of the range were rebuilt in timber framework, probably in the 17th century. In the 18th century a kitchen wing was built on the W., and other additions were made at the N. end of the range. Inside, the original range has a class-J plan; the through-passage between the middle room and that on the N. is not original. In the 19th century the large fireplaces were blocked up, the stairs were remodelled on a circular plan and the 18th-century kitchen fireplace was altered. The ground-floor rooms of the 16th-century range have large stop-chamfered beams.

The farmhouse was formerly surrounded by a Moat of class A1 (a)1, forming an island 100 ft. square with a wet ditch 15 ft. to 30 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep. The Tithe Map of 1845 shows the moat complete, with an entrance causeway on the E., near the N. corner; today only the W., S. and part of the E. sides remain.' and Footnote 'Cambridgeshire I, lxi-lxiv.'

<5> Upton, K L, 1978, The Moated Sites of Dorset, 42 (Unpublished document). SDO14051.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 457914 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 11 2023 4:43PM