Listed Building record MDO27599 - Pope's Farmhouse, New Street, Marnhull

Pope's Farmhouse 17th century Farmhouse and stable/dwelling building. Grade II*. <2,3>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map, 1983 (Map). SDO17396.

(ST77171821) Pope's Farm

<2> DOE (HRR), 1984, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest: District of North Dorset, 36 (Scheduling record). SDO17668.

<3> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 271 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 153-4 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘(5) POPE'S FARM (77141819), house, ¾ m. W.S.W. of the parish church, is two-storied and has walls partly of ashlar and partly of coursed rubble, with tiled roofs. To the S. is a detached range, part stable and part habitation, also two-storied and of similar materials. Both buildings date from the first half of the 17th century. A barn to the N.E., of coursed rubble with a stone-slated roof, is of the late 17th or early 18th century.
The S. front of the farmhouse is ashlar faced; it has an ogee-moulded plinth, a hollow-chamfered string-course above the ground-floor windows and a stone cove at the eaves. The front is approximately symmetrical and of three bays, having the doorway near the centre with a one-light window over it, and four-light windows to either side in both storeys. The windows are square-headed with chamfered surrounds and reserved chamfers to heads and jambs. The gabled E. wall has moulded copings above shaped kneelers and a brick chimney-stack at the apex; the only opening is a small stone window on the ground floor. In the W. elevation, the S. range is ashlar fronted but the N. wing is of rubble; on the ground floor at the N. end is a square-headed three-light window with chamfered and hollow-chamfered heads and jambs, and the remains of a hollow-chamfered label. The first floor has two stone windows, as on the ground floor, but without labels.
Inside, the ground-floor room at the E. end of the S. range has moulded wall-plates and intersecting beams forming a ceiling of nine panels. The walls have 18th-century oak panelling in two heights; the N. side of the room is a plank-and-muntin partition. The kitchen, in the S. part of the N. wing, has a ceiling of intersecting deeply chamfered beams with which the partitions no longer correspond; the beam on the E. side of the room was originally a wall-plate, showing that there was formerly a passage to the E. In the S. wall of the kitchen is an open fireplace with a chamfered stone head and rounded shoulders; to the W. is an oven. The oak stairs are original; they have moulded close strings, heavy turned balusters, square newel-posts with ball finials and heavy moulded handrails. A cupboard on the landing has an oak door with long iron strap-hinges terminating in scrolls.
In the two storied Stable Range to the S., the E. front is of ashlar above a rubble plinth. The ground floor has three windows and two doorways, alternating and arranged symmetrically, with the three middle openings grouped together; above the window heads is a continuous weathered and hollow-chamfered string-course. The S. window has been altered to make a third doorway; the remaining windows are square-headed and of two lights, with chamfered and hollow-chamfered heads and jambs. Of the two original doorways that to the S. is wider than the other; it has a roll-moulded four-centred head with reserved spandrels under an ogee-moulded square head; both mouldings continue on the jambs. The other doorway has a four-centred roll-moulded head and jambs, and plain spandrels. On the first floor are two plain loft doorways and two ornamental loops with chamfered edges, convex heads and sills, and shaped jambs; these openings do not correspond with the divisions of the lower storey. The gabled end walls are ashlar faced but the W. wall is of rubble. All have windows of one, two and three lights, uniform with those of the E. front; several of them are blocked. The N. end also has a doorway with a four-centred roll-moulded head and continuous jambs; on the first floor is a three-light window with a label, and the attic has an opening of one light. Internally, a first-floor chamber at the N. end of the range has a stone fireplace with a hollow-chamfered four-centred head within a square ogee-moulded surround with mitred spandrels. The rest of the upper storey is a hay-loft.’

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 888402 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 17 2022 8:31AM