Arreton Manor
| Arreton Manor | |
| Hampshire | |
|---|---|
 Arreton Manor | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SZ53348688 |
| Location: | 50°40’45"N, 1°14’47"W |
| Village: | Arreton |
| History | |
| Built 1637 – 1639 | |
| For: | Humphrey Bennett |
| Country house | |
| Jacobean | |
| Information | |
Arreton Manor is an Elizabethan / Jacobean manor house in Arreton on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire.
In 1525, it was leased to the Leigh family. The manor was rebuilt between 1595 and 1612. Built in Jacobean style, it is in the shape of a "H".
History
The history of the manor has been traced to 872 AD to the time of King Alfred the Great. It was left by King Alfred by his will to his youngest son Aethelweard. The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor as held by the King. In the 12th century it became part of Quarr Abbey and was used by the monks for over 400 years.
In 1525, the manor was leased by Abbot William Rippon to a parish landholder, John Leigh. The manor was rebuilt between 1595 and 1612.
In 1630, Humphrey Bennett bought the estate and built a new house in place of the old, between 1637 and 1639. King Charles I visited the manor several times. Sir Thomas Bennet added the new porch and oak panelling in the major rooms. The original manor house was far older, however. It is claimed that Queen Mary often visited Arreton Manor.
Arreton Manor was leased to several different farmers until 1628, when it was granted by the King to trustees to settle the king's debts to the City of London. It was then bought by two merchants from the trustees. It was later bought by Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper, Governor of the Isle of Wight. On Lord Culpeper's death, his daughter Lady Katherine, acquired the property. Lady Katherine married Lord Fairfax and it stayed in the Fairfax family for 230 years.
Queen Victoria supposedly planted a conifer on the manor's south lawn.
The house was purchased from Count Slade de Pomeroy by Jeanne Schroeder in 1987. She sold it to a family named Clark, who closed the house to the public in 1999. It was subsequently bought by Andy and Julia Gray-Ling in 2004, and re-opened to the public, during which time it played host to a Living History display by the Church, State and Household group every August before it was closed and made a private residence again.
The Manor was last sold in August 2017 to Nathalie Pulford who still resides there, as a family home. Arreton Manor is no longer open to the public but its coachhouse is now an antiques shop from where one can now see a handsome view of the Manor's exemplary Jacobean façade.
Architecture
Style
Arreton is a typical example of the Jacobean manor house of the old Isle of Wight. It was rebuilt over an older house between 1637 and 1639 by Humphrey Bennett. He had purchased the old house in 1630.[1] The manor was built as a two storied structure in an "H" layout; such a centre block with projecting wings was common in the 17th century. The extended portion on the left side, which was added in 1832 in the same architectural style, has disturbed the structure's symmetry. The interior woodwork is elaborate, but the exterior is plain.[1]
The building was constructed with "limestone rubble with freestone dressings". It has gabled roofs with a symmetrical front elevation. The porch is double storied and the hall on the southeast is entered through this porch. The porch, with its date tablet of 1639, is an addition put up soon after the house was finished.
Grounds
Arreton Manor House lies under the south slope of the chalk down, close to the church.[2] To the east of the house is a 16th–17th century dovecote with a four-centred arched opening and stone mullioned windows, and to the south stands a 17th-century barn of noble proportions.
In literature
Arreton Manor, fictionalised as "Arden Manor", is a central location of the 1889 Maxwell Gray novel, The Reproach of Annesley. [3]
Outside links
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Hampshire & The Isle of Wight, 1967 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09606-4page 76-78
- ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Hampshire & The Isle of Wight, 1967 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09606-4page 29
- ↑ 'A pictorial and descriptive guide to the Isle of Wight in six sections', Ward Lock and Company, 1948
