The Dower House

The Dower House is a house dating from around 1500, with alterations made in the late 18th century. It is timber framed and roughcast, topped with a plain tiled roof. The building has a Wealden hall house plan consisting of four framed bays and stands two storeys high with an attic on a plinth. There are jetties on both the left and right sides supported by dragon posts, and the structure features moulded bresummers. The central bays are recessed and display a flying wall plate on arched braces. The hipped roof has a moulded parapet, gablets, two flat-roofed dormers, and chimney stacks located at the centre and the left end.

On the first floor, there are four wooden casements, while the ground floor has three 20th-century cross windows and one 20th-century wooden mullioned casement. The front door, located to the centre right, is made of six panels and has a rectangular fanlight set in a moulded surround with a flat hood. To the right, there is a recessed two-storey wing with a hipped roof, a chimney stack, and one wooden casement on each floor.

Inside, the full frame is visible, featuring moulded ceiling joists. The screens passage is located to the left (south) rather than behind the current door. There are two four-centred arched screen doors leading to the service wing, adorned with moulded jambs, rose spandrels, and fernleaf and pomegranate spandrels. The house also contains very large inglenooks and a late 18th-century open well plan stair with unturned balusters and turned newels on a closed string, complete with a ramped handrail. A later framed wing is located at the rear, along with a tiled dairy from the 18th or 19th century.

Historically, the house was known as Goodnestone Farm and is frequently mentioned in the correspondence of Jane Austen, whose brother married a daughter of Sir Brook Bridges of Goodnestone Park.