Tolpuddle Manor House

Manor house. Dated over the entrance, IVNA 1696. The front wall is constructed of roughly tooled ashlar stone, while the left end wall uses brick and flint banding, and the right end and rear walls are brick – the rear walls appear to be a 18th or 19th-century refacing. The roof is slate, with stone eaves courses and coped gables. Brick end stacks project externally. The house has two storeys and an attic. A gabled porch, with a ball finial, has a moulded round-arched opening with a keystone and moulded imposts and jambs. A string course sits above the keystone. The inner doorway features a depressed four-centred arch and a six-panel door. A string course is present at first floor level and above the first floor windows on the main facade. The ground floor has four stone mullioned and transomed windows, with wave-moulded mullions and leaded lights. Five similar windows are on the first floor. On both floors, some lights have been blocked to accommodate later partitions. The attic incorporates two hipped dormers with casements featuring a central horizontal bar. A rear wing at the right end is single storey and attic, contemporary or slightly later, and contains an early, heavy oak door. Adjoining this wing is a single-storey slated wing dating from around 1800. The interior has been altered in the 18th century and later. A redesigned 18th-century closed string staircase features alternately turned and twisted balusters and newels styled as composite pilasters with reversed volutes, described as “Blandford” capitals. In two ground floor rooms, re-used moulded stone fireplace surrounds, reputedly from Fonthill, are present.