Restoration: Waterston Manor, Puddletown, Dorset

A few years ago Captain Gerald V. Carter acquired the estate from Lord IIchester. The house had long been used as a farm, and all vestiges had disappeared of the old garden which doubtless framed it. The enlargements and repairs needful to bring the house back into a state of architectural honour were designed by Mr. P. Morley Horder, who has provided the necessary amenities in a thoroughly conservative spirit.

The main entrance to the house when used as a farm was on the south side under the delightful circular bay. This has now been made a garden entry leading into a small paved rose garden. Some old Jacobean stone arcades, which after the fire of 1863 were built into the house in a meaningless way, have been used in the wing walls running out from the south front on either side.Similar arches have been worked into the end of the farm buildings, which now form a garden- house overlooking the rose garden. A long cowshed which ran at right angles to the house up to the road was removed, leaving only an old wall. This wall formed an excellent screen between the private garden on the south and the new entrance drive which runs parallel with the new wall dividing the stable yard from the drive. Two old cottages formed one side of the stable yard, and the drive into the courtyard has been carried through the end of this block, which now suggests a simple form of gate-house—a treatment characteristic of many Dorset-shire manor houses. The beautiful eastern gable has been given again its old central position by the addition of the north-east wing and emphasised in the laying out of the grounds by the water garden leading from the dining-room door to the tennis lawn at a higher level.

Waterston has long been familiar to the architectural student by reason of this gable, for it forms the subject of one of the most striking plates in Nash’s ‘Mansions of England.” The often inaccurate Nash tripped in his drawing, for he shows the two figures on the wrong sides, and his fine yew trees seem to have been a touch of artistic licence. At all events, nothing of them has survived, not even a stump. He was probably correct in showing the roof thatched. It was a common enough treatment for houses of much state as well as for humble cottages. A notable feature of the design of Waterston which it shares with its neighbour, Anderson Manor (Winterbourne Anderson), is the very tall proportion of the windows.

The disastrous fire in 1863 must have destroyed everything of value within the house, but Mr. Morley Horder has been successful in giving to the interior its old character in a simple way. The newly formed hall has been panelled with old oak worked locally and the old fireplace cleansed of the paint which veiled it. Hardy’s description of the old staircase was borne in mind, and it was fashioned in heavy oak by local hand labour.

The old farm building where Gabriel Oak sheared Bathsheba’s flock has been removed and the materials used in the alterations. Hardy could never have had this particular barn in his mind’s eye, for it was of recent date, and quite overpowered the house with its great gaunt brick walls. The old tithe barn at Abbotsbury answers better to his description. It is fortunate that Waterston, beautiful in itself and fragrant with literary associations far exceeding in vitality its authentic history, should have fallen into such good hands, and Captain Carter may be congratulated on having so faith- fully repaired the shrine of Bathsheba. LAWRENCE WEAVER.

Reference    Country Life 12 February 1916 page 211-214
Reference    Builder 3 January 1930

Formal Gardens, Waterston Manor, Puddletown, Dorset
Architect     Morley Horder
Listed    Grade II