Listed Building record MDO14258 - Friar Waddon Farmhouse, Friar Waddon, Portesham

A detached farmhouse thought to have been built in the mid-seventeenth century. The building has walls of stone rubble with dressed stone quoins, and a slate roof.

Friar Waddon was anciently a manor and hamlet but is now only a farm. Near the farm-house is a chapel, almost entire,
but long since desecrated, and turned into a dairy-house. At Domesday Friar Waddon was held by the French nunnery of
St Mary, Montevilliers. <1>

(SY64188579) The present Friar Waddon farm house is a fairly modern building with no trace of antiquity in its immediate
vicinity. An Elizabethan style house to the south-east is probably the old farmhouse and the building indicated by
Authy 1 lies slightly to the south east of the later house. It is now converted into two thatched cottages, stone built and orientated east-west with one mullioned window of three lights with rounded arches in the southern wall. It bears no
architectural features of an ecclesiastical nature. The centre of the east wall has been partly rebuilt by the insertion of
a modern brick chimney. All other buildings in the vicinity were inspected but none more likely to be the chapel referred to by
Hutchins <1> was found. <2>

SY 641858. Friar Waddon House is fairly modern and old hamlet now forms a large farmstead to the S.E. In addition to the
buildings described, there are traces of foundations indicating that other buildings have been pulled down, particularly in
the N.W. corner of the farmstead.

House, to W., with walls of squared stone and slate-covered roof, is built on a three-room plan with end chimneys and entrance opposite a small central room; it has been extended to the W. and divided to form two tenements. House, to S., is similar in size and plan but has the upper floor partly in the roof; it is of the 18th century but has reset in the S. wall a 16th-century window of three arched lights in a moulded square head with continuous jambs; the house has been re-arranged to form two tenements.

House, to E., is of similar size to the foregoing and has one end chimney and one projecting lateral chimney
suggesting a late 16th-century date; it has been drastically altered and only part is now occupied as a dwelling. Stable, to
N., it probably of the 18th century. Barn, to E., has opposed porches and has been extended; the roof was reconstructed in the
19th century. Barn, further E., has a shallow porch to the S. only; the roof is carried on three tie and collar-beam trusses.
Byre to N.E.is probably of the late 18th century. Barn to N.W. is of five bays with opposed porches, one with gabled roof and
one with pent roof; the main roof is carried on queen-post trusses. <3-4>

<1> Shipp, W, and Hodson, J W (eds), 1863, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. 3rd edition. Volume 2, 764 (Monograph). SWX1269.

<2> Rigg, J, Field Investigators Comments JR, F1 JR 28-JUL-54 (Unpublished document). SWX1255.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 245-246 (Monograph). SDO149.

<4> Good, R, 1979, Lost Villages of Dorset, 53 (Monograph). SWX1569.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 452504 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jun 27 2022 4:48PM