Scaplen's Court is a fifteenth century

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 ...

house in

Poole Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east ...

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 ...

, England, adjacent to the

Poole Museum Poole Museum (formerly known as the Waterfront Museum) is a currently closed local history museum situated on the Lower High Street in the Old Town area of Poole, Dorset, and is part of the Borough of Poole Museum Service. Entrance to Poole Muse ...

. The house is now used as a museum focusing on life in Poole between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, and includes a Victorian schoolroom and kitchen.

History

Scaplen's Court was originally built in the late fifteenth century as a house for a rich merchant, and the style of the house was indicative of the prosperity of Poole at the time. The house was originally L-shaped, and was built of Purbeck and

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its h ...

, and

cobbles Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called ''Belgian blocks'', are often referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct from a ...

from

Poole Quay Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 201 ...

. The history of the house is uncertain, but a doorway in the courtyard displays the Poole shield of arms. It is believed that a maid named Agnes Beard was murdered at the house in 1598, and there are suggestions that her ghost haunts the house. It has also been suggested by local historians that the building may have been Poole's ''Old Town House'', the first

guildhall A guildhall, also known as a guild hall or guild house, is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Europe, with many surviving today in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commo ...

in the town, and that in the seventeenth century it was known as the ''George's Inn'', and was occupied by the

Roundhead Roundheads were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who ...

s during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

. During the eighteenth century, the house was acquired by John Scaplen, after whom the building is now named. In 1927, the Society of Poole Men bought the house for £16,000 and spent £430 on renovating the property. During the renovation, a

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

from the time of

Mary I Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She made vigorous a ...

was found at the house. The building was opened to the public for the first time in 1929. In 1931, the house obtained a map believed to be the oldest map of Poole, which dated from 1643. The museum became a

Grade I listed building 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 ...

in 1954, and was restored in 1986. In 2006/7, the museum was used to dry an

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

boat that had been recovered from

Poole Harbour Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley ( ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...

in 1964; the boat is now on display at the nearby

References

{{coord, 50.71280, -1.98884, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title, format=dms Grade I listed houses in Dorset Grade I listed museum buildings 15th-century architecture in the United Kingdom Museums in Poole