Cranborne Manor from the South Court - geograph

Cranborne Manor is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

in Cranborne,

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, in southern England. The manor dates back to around 1207/8, and was originally a hunting lodge. It was re-modelled for The 1st Earl of Salisbury in the early 17th century. The main seat of the earls and marquesses of

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

Hatfield House Hatfield House is a Grade I listed English country house, country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean architecture, Jacobean hous ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, and Cranborne Manor is often the home of the heir to the title, who uses the

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but is rather used by custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some context ...

Viscount Cranborne.

The house

The house is a

building, being "extremely important both as a rare survival of early C13 domestic architecture and as a fine early C17 country house" remodelled, after 1608, by William Arnold who also worked on

Dunster Castle Dunster Castle is a former motte and bailey castle, now a English country house, country house, in the village of Dunster, Somerset, England. The castle lies on the top of a steep hill called the Tor, and has been fortified since the late Anglo ...

in this period and built

Montacute House Montacute House is a late Elizabethan era, Elizabethan mansion in Montacute, South Somerset, England. An example of English architecture created during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic architecture, Gothic to the more Classica ...

and

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street, Oxford, Broad Street and Parks Road ...

. The original Manor house was actually built for King John in the 12th century and was used as a royal hunting lodge. It is constructed of ashlar, rubble and flint with ashlar dressings. The roofs are tiled and slated, with brick chimney stacks. The house is E-shaped in plan with three storeys, attics and basement. Originally, the house probably had the hall on the first floor, and other rooms over a vaulted

undercroft An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room, often brick-lined and Vault (architecture), vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area whi ...

. The windows are seventeenth century and are

mullioned A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

. In the southwestern corner there is a tower. The interior of the house has seventeenth-century panelling and fireplaces in many rooms, as well as a number of seventeenth-century stone doorways. The vaulted undercroft dates from the same period and has screens with Doric

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s, and a gallery with arcaded panelling above. There are some remnants of the thirteenth-century chapel at the east end of the house.

The estate and garden

The estate consists of a 3,000 acre in hand farm and over 1,700 acres of woods, as well as the park and gardens. The estate is owned by the Marquess of Salisbury through a set of offshore companies. The farm is mostly arable but there is some pastureland, mostly riverside meadows, where the beef suckler herd graze. The Manor is surrounded by extensive formal and informal gardens, lawns, a kitchen garden, walled gardens and an orchard. It contains a water mobile named 'La Source' created by Angela Conner and various other works of art. The garden is open to the public on a regular basis, but the house is not open to the public. The garden featured some of the Horticultural designs of Mollie Wyndham-Quinn, who married the Viscount Cranborne (later the 6th Marquess of Salisbury), before she restored the gardens at Hatfield House.

References

External links

Official siteEntry at britishlistedbuildings.co.uk
{{coord, 50.9185, -1.9258, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Manor houses in England Country houses in Dorset Gardens in Dorset Grade I listed houses in Dorset