Listed Building record MDO8856 - Tomson Farm House, Winterborne Tomson, Anderson

A detached farmhouse built in the early seventeenth century, with a nineteenth-century addition at the back. The building has walls of stone rubble and a tiled roof.

SY 88569740. Tomson Farm is an early 17th century house of two-storeys and attics with coursed-rubble walls and squared-rubble dressings with some brickwork in the upper parts. Hutchins <1> interpreted foundations to the west as evidence that the house was originally longer, having had a symmetrical plan centred on the stair tower, but this is doubtful. A range of buildings running north from the east end of the house is partly 19th century but towards the north it incorporates a single-storeyed cottage of probable 17th century origin. At the north end of the range is an extension, perhaps of the 18th century, incorporating heavy timber-frame construction, probably re-used. A stone-rubble built barn, 50 yds west of the house was partly rebuilt in the 19th century but to the south are two original bays of the early 17th century.

A projecting two-storeyed wing to the west has a pigeon-cote in the upper storey. <3>

<1> Shipp, W, and Hodson, J W (eds), 1861, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. 3rd edition. Volume 1, 195 (Monograph). SWX4496.

<2> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1902 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 88569740) Tomson Farm (NAT)

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(4) TOMSON FARM (88569740), 100 yds. E. of St. Andrew's church (2), is an early 17th-century house of two storeys with attics. The walls are of coursed rubble with squared rubble dressings and with some brickwork in the upper parts; the E., S. and W. fronts are rendered; the roofs are principally of stone-slate but tiled near the ridges. Two large chimneybreasts project from the N. wall, each with three diagonally set brick flues at the top. Hutchins (1, 195) interprets foundations to the W. as evidence that the house was originally longer, having had a symmetrical plan centred on the stair tower, but this is doubtful. Many original windows survive; they are of two to five lights with recessed and hollow-chamfered stone jambs and mullions, square heads and moulded labels. The house is fairly well preserved and incorporates interesting original features. Originally, the ground-floor plan probably comprised three rooms: a central hall with a kitchen to the E. and a parlour to the W. A screens-passage between the kitchen and the hall may well have had N. and S. doorways, but the latter is obliterated. The hall appears to have had no fireplace. The spiral stairs opened off the hall and led up to a well appointed chamber over the parlour.
The S. front is of four bays, each bay with a four-light mullioned window on each storey, except where replaced by modern openings. The wall-face is interrupted by three brick buttresses, to a large extent rendered, but probably of the 18th century; one of them may mask an original S. doorway. The present entrance to the house has been formed in one of the S. windows. The W. end wall has a modern three-light window on the ground floor and an original window of five lights above; the E. end wall has original four-light openings in both storeys. The N. front has a large projecting chimney-breast near each end, and a projecting stair tower on the E. of the western breast (Plate 90). At the base of the tower, on the N. side, is a low doorway with a shallow four-centred chamfered head and continuous jambs; above it are square-headed three-light windows in two storeys. Between the stair tower and the eastern chimney-breast the lower part of the N. front is masked by an out-building but, inside this, the N. wall contains an original window and doorway; the latter has a chamfered four-centred head and is somewhat taller than the doorway in the stair tower.
Inside, an original plank-and-muntin partition forms the E. side of the W. ground-floor room. The N. and E. sides of the adjacent closet are also of plank-and-muntin, but reset. The chimney-breast on the W. side of the E. room is probably of the 19th century. There is no visible evidence for or against a S. doorway in correspondence with either of the known N. doorways.
The spiral stair is of stone and the doorway which opens from the stairs to the first floor has a shallow four-centred head, hollow-chamfered and ogee-moulded jambs and shaped stops (Plate 81); the mouldings are on the S. side of the opening and the rebate is towards the stairs. The doorway opens into an original draught-lobby of oak, with fluted Ionic pilasters and an enriched cornice. The W. chamber, into which the draught-lobby projects, originally occupied about two-thirds of the first floor but it is now divided into two rooms and a passage. The chamber has a moulded plaster ceiling embellished with crowned Tudor roses, fleurs-de-lis, rampant lions, grotesque masks and arabesques (Plate 91); the plasterwork is intersected by the later partitions and parts of it are missing. The fireplace of the W. chamber has a moulded stone surround with a shallow four-centred head and a carved frieze of stone panels with lozenges and stylised foliage. The E. chamber has a moulded plaster ceiling with intersecting ribs forming geometrical patterns around a central pendant; the fireplace is modern. At the top of the stairs the attic landing has an oak railing of turned balusters in two heights with a moulded to rail. The doorway from the landing to the attic is of oak with chamfered jambs and a four-centred head. The principal members of the roof are original.
A range of buildings running N. from the E. end of the house is partly of the 19th century but towards the N. it incorporates a single-storied Cottage that is probably of 17th-century origin. A gabled wing projecting to the E. contains a wooden newel staircase with a large oven beneath it. At the N. end of the cottage is an open fireplace with a chamfered and cambered bressummer. The attic floor rests on reused deep-chamfered beams with splay stops. Reset in the W. wall of the cottage is a block of stone, 6 ins. square, cut from a carved shield-of-arms of the Hussey family (see Hutchins IV, 312). At the N. end of the range is an extension, perhaps of the 18th century, incorporating heavy timber-frame construction, probably reused.’

<4> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 487-8 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 455739 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 14 2023 3:58PM