Wolfeton House

Wolfeton House is a Grade I listed manor house with an attached gatehouse, located in Charminster. The gatehouse is dated 1534 and represents the surviving element of an early 16th-century courtyard house, of which only part of one range now remains. The main house was extended westward in the later 16th century. Significant demolitions occurred in the early 19th century. In 1862, the house was purchased by W H P Weston, whose extensive restoration and rebuilding works included the construction of a passageway connecting the house to the gatehouse and substantial alterations to the western offices.

The buildings are constructed of Purbeck rubble stone and ashlar walls with stone slate roofs. Stone chimney stacks are present, both rectangular and round forms, with the round stacks showing 19th-century imitation of 16th-century work.

The gatehouse stands approximately 30 metres east of the main house. It is a two-storey structure with attics, arranged on a rectangular plan with two round towers of differing dimensions. The east front features the entrance archway, positioned slightly north of centre, with a four-centred moulded head and jambs with pedestal bases graded in height to create an illusion of greater recession. Above this is a moulded label with carved stops representing a satyr and woodmouse holding staves. An early 18th-century cartouche sits above. The ground and first-floor windows comprise one, two and three lights with hollow chamfered four-centred heads and foliate spandrels, all of early 16th-century date. North and south gable walls feature projecting stacks. The north stack bears an inscription panel reading "HOC OPUS FINITUM EST ANNO DNI MDXXXIIII".

The main house retains the surviving part of the 16th-century south range at the east end of its south front. A three-stage south tower, featuring strings and an embattled parapet, shows a topmost stage of circa 1862 date. A west doorway has a restored square moulded head and jambs with pedestal stops. The tower contains two-light and single-light windows. West of the tower survive early 16th-century walls extending to a small garderobe tower, featuring two-light and three-light mullions to the ground floor with high-quality carving in the mouldings, arch-spandrels, labels and stops. The first floor displays a five-light window with similar detailing. The garderobe comprises a small semi-octagonal first-floor projection supported on a rectangular shaft with moulded plinth and capping, moulded corbelling at the sides, and small broaches rising to the semi-octagon above. The late 16th-century block adjoining to the west is two storeys in height with three windows, each featuring four-light mullions and transoms with square heads, moulded jambs and mullions with moulded pedestal-stops above transoms and sills. A door has been cut into the east window, which comprises two lights, with blockings immediately to its west.

The wall of the east front north of the south tower is ostensibly mid-19th century, featuring two gables, the northern one merging into the north-east tower. Three-light mullion and transom windows with labels date to the 19th century. The crenellated north-east tower of semi-octagonal form is entirely 19th-century work.

The north front has been much altered and refaced in the 19th century. To the east, a mid-19th-century screen-wall forms the passageway connecting the house to the gatehouse. The north wall of the stair is late 16th century but refaced, retaining over the porch a window of three mullion and transom lights in a square head with moulded jambs and pedestal stops. The windows feature iron casements with glazing bars. The north porch is mid-19th century, constructed of ashlar with moulded cornice and crenellated parapet, moulded jambs, and a four-centred head with trefoiled spandrels, label and head stops, with a carved armorial above. A two-leaf plank door dates to the 19th century. West of the porch is a range of office buildings of late 18th and early 19th-century date, with dressed stone walls and hipped slate roofs. Two storeys in height, these contain five windows total, fitted with sashes featuring thin glazing bars and stone cills. Gauged stone voussoirs sit above. One canted bay at the left ground level features 19th-century sashes with thin glazing bars. A door to the left has a round-arched head with a flush-panel design of early 19th-century date.

The south elevation west of the late 16th-century range has been extensively altered and rebuilt, now largely of late 18th or early 19th-century date, except at the west end, where the front features a moulded plinth, a four-light stone-mullioned window on the ground floor with square head and label, and traces of another blocked window on the first floor.

Internally, the gatehouse contains many noteworthy features. The main house was extensively remodelled in the later 19th century, with many fittings of that era produced in Jacobean style. The East Drawing Room on the ground floor contains a doorcase and fireplace surround with overmantel comprising highly enriched assemblages of early 17th-century woodwork from other parts of the house. The West Drawing Room has a north door composed of pieces of 16th and 17th-century carving. A stone Great Staircase, probably restored in the 19th century but following 16th-century form, features a balustrade with a pierced arcade of round-headed arches supporting a continuous moulded capping, returned along the first-floor landing and terminating in a caryatid. A doorway into the former gallery has a stone surround of late 16th-century date, similar in design to work at Longleat of circa 1575. An original stone chimneypiece survives in the gallery, rising to the full height of the room in two stages and dating to the late 16th century. This chimneypiece is similar in design and workmanship to that in the Great Chamber at Montacute.