November, 2011:

It is probably impossible to exaggerate the sovereign status of Maiden Castle among the 80 known defended prehistoric hillforts in Dorset alone, or to play down its importance in the heyday of this type of site throughout England as a whole. Yet this fortified hill is of no great elevation, being plainly visible from the air as an extensive kidney-shaped enclosure girded about by three great tiered embankments or ramparts with interstitial ditches. From ground level however, this amazing site, barely two miles south west of Dorchester town centre, may appear only as a great linear embankment or ridge.

To re-trace Maiden Castle’s evolution from its earliest antiquity we have to regress some six thousand years to the time of the first farmer’s arrival in England. At that time the Maiden hill would probably have appeared as a plain insignificant low elevation on the tract of lowland between the river Frome to the north and the coastal ridge to the south. It is further likely that the site and its immediate environment was well wooded in those days, or until the agricultural immigrants arrived.

These immigrants were settlers of the New Stone Age (Neolithic) from continental Europe. Finding the hill a favourable location for establishing a communal base, the hill and the surrounding land were clear-felled and the eastern end (knoll) was enclosed by a discontinuous bank and double line of ditches, creating the feature known to archaeologists as a causewayed enclosure. This had an area of about 20 acres, but very little activity took place within it at first. Later the enclosure seems to have served a charnel function for the ritual disposal of the dead, as the deposition of a considerable amount of human and animal bone with some pottery took place in the ditches and pits.

There is then evidence that the site went out of use in the later Neolithic. Following this the bank was razed and partly overlain by the construction of a type of monument unknown from anywhere else outside Dorset. This was an extremely elongated mound known as a bank barrow, which in the Maiden Castle example is 545 metres (1790 feet) long and was found to contain a mutilated burial at one end. This suggests that the bank barrow may have originally been a long barrow, which for some possibly ritualistic reason was greatly extended.

For until the early first millennium BC it appears that Maiden Castle seems to have been a place serving an almost exclusively ritual or funerary function. There is no evidence for any continuation or extension of habitation within the enclosure from the late Neolithic and into the Bronze Age. The only feature to be added during this period being a round barrow, which could well be contemporary with the barrow to be seen in the ploughed field to the north-west.

It has therefore been supposed that towards the end of the Neolithic around 2000 BC the focus of settlement shifted towards Poundbury Camp, the other major prehistoric site near Dorchester, or else into the Frome valley. Certainly during the Bronze Age the land around Maiden Castle was divided up for agriculture by means of lynchets and field systems. This has been taken to indicate increasing pressure on the land from population growth, though there is no evidence that the hilltop itself was ever brought into cultivation.

By the Mid Bronze Age some land became exhausted from over cultivation. A Revival of Maiden Castle as a focus of occupation then appears to take place around the same time, for a bank was constructed from north to south down the middle of the hill, segregating the Neolithic enclosure from the western half. There is some indication that the latter was then used for ranching or grazing sheep. High-caste burials evidently continued locally, as the dividing bank is associated with the appearance of more round barrows.

One of the popular misconceptions about hillforts is that they were wholly an innovation of the Iron Age peoples, and so had no precursors in the earlier period. But it is now recognised that many of these fortified hills had their origin in the Bronze Age, although they were unlikely to have been fully revetted at this time.

The arrival of the Iron Age in Britain is usually taken at around 700 BC, when a new wave of settlers from the continent arrived in southern England. At Maiden Castle possible pressure of population forced the new immigrants to bring the hilltop into use as a place to live and not just for stock-keeping or religious functions. A single rampart was constructed at the east end, using the line of the much earlier Neolithic enclosure bank almost entirely, with a ditch and double portal entrance retained throughout later modifications. This enclosed about 16 acres, but was later enlarged to 47 acres to take in
the west knoll. With this enlargement the original defences were strengthened and double entrances protected by outworks constructed at each end. At the east entrance two defended corridors were also designated.

Many hut dwellings were constructed, but from around 200 BC some abandonment of the site for smaller settlements outside seems to have taken place, for some of the defences were eroded and some huts collapsed. Then in about 150 BC the main rampart was doubled, additional lines of defence were built, and the outworks around the east entrance were greatly increased in complexity. Though curiously, the ramparts on the south side were never finished properly. Here they are of the type called ‘glacis’ i.e. the counter scarp of the bank sloped straight down into the ditch. But by the Mid Iron Age settlement within the enclosure was well organised, with areas for living, religion and animal husbandry.

Between 100 and 75 BC the site underwent another major reconstruction. The inner rampart was modified and the outer ones strengthened. (Initially these ramparts were of the box type, i.e. they were revetted by timber on both sides.) The inner gates were left unaltered, but both entrances were completely re-modelled with greater depth and complexity. This persistent reinforcing of the ramparts has been interpreted as an expression of civic pride or as a defence against rival tribes beyond the hill or, ultimately, the Romans.

But the arrival of the Romans in the area was a whole century in the future when Maiden Castle was at its peak, though anticipation of a Roman invasion could have been rife by the early 1st century. Nevertheless the threat seems to have prompted last minute fortifications at the entranceways in readiness, but to no avail. The threat became a brutal reality in 45 AD when a cohort of the 2nd Legion under the command of Vespasian (a future emperor) laid siege to the hillfort at the east entrance. Despite the complexity of the interlocking outworks, the Roman’s superior arsenal and tactics easily surmounted the obstacles.

Those survivors from among the many slain in the ensuing conflict are thought to have abandoned the site for settlements below, as their way of life in primitive timber hovels would have been out of keeping with the Roman way. After the conquest of the hill a square, roofed shrine with accompanying priest house was built in the north-central part of the enclosure.

With this temple the retraceable history of Maiden Castle is concluded and then lost for another 19 centuries. In the 1930 the eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler undertook his famous excavation of the east entrance area and revealed to the world the grizzly fate of the hillfort’s defenders. He excavated a cemetery of the fallen, many showing broken bones and in one instance the skeleton of a man with the Roman ballista-bolt which killed him still embedded in his spine! The finding of mounds of ammunition showed that the defenders had collected pebbles from Chesil Bank to use as sling stones.

Interestingly, it has been said that Wheeler, in concentrating on the late Iron Age and Roman phases of the hill’s history, disturbed the causewayed enclosure without having any idea of what it was or that it was there – in other words he discovered it by accident.

More recently in 1985 and 1986 new excavations were undertaken with the aim of extending Wheeler’s trenches to extract new data. But in conclusion it can be said that much about the earlier part of the Maiden Castle story is based on flimsy evidence, and is therefore not above re-appraisal should more information be forthcoming in the future.

One of Dorset’s Elizabethan gems is Kingston Maurward Manor, a rare E-plan house, of which only Parnham, Chantmarle and Anderson Manor bear some comparison. But the latter had their origins some one hundred years later than the manor at Maurward, so making its ground plan unique for the Dorset of its century.

It was in about 1597 that Christopher Grey, a descendant of a county family who had married into the Maurward family some two centuries earlier when they inherited the estate named after them, built the house in Maurward Park that would become known as The Old Manor. Little information about the building of this house has been handed down, and virtually nothing is known about where the Greys had been living up until then. However, it has been noted that a particular architectural detail of the house – window mullions with moulded bases – also occurs in Wolfeton House near Dorchester, suggesting that the same mason had been employed on both houses.

Angel Grey, grandson of Christopher, then built an extension onto the south-east side of the Old Manor early in the 17th century, though his reason for doing so is not exactly known. Three quarters of a century later in 1700 George Pitt married Laura Grey, a descendant of Angel, and they commissioned the building of a new house on a site across the park from the manor. This is now Kingston Maurward House.

Structurally, the attic of the Old Manor comprises eight great A-frames and some of these still bear numbers carved into them by the Tudor carpenters. The joists supporting the first and second floors are 15” x 15” oak beams. The house is entered through the middle wing of the west front, where the screens passage would originally have been. The Great Hall would have been off to the right with the Great Kitchen opposite, occupying the north wing of the ‘E’.

More recently the foundations of what appears to have been a staircase tower once occupying the space between the Tudor house and the Grey extension were discovered, though nothing else remains of the original tower today. Of course, there must have once been a means of access to the upper storeys which was later destroyed. As it happened Angel Grey, the builder of the 17th century extension, was a staunch Royalist, and it has been supposed that the destruction of the staircase occurred during the Civil War by a troop of local Roundheads, perhaps in an attempt to render the upper floors of the house uninhabitable.

By the time the new house built by Pitt in 1700 was completed the Old Manor had become subordinate and largely un-maintained as the estate then passed through other owners. Dorset County Council eventually bought this house in 1947 and converted it into five private residences for council tenants, but by the late 1950’s it had again fallen into disuse. By 1947 however, the new house had become the home of the county’s agricultural and horticultural college.

After the Old Manor had fallen derelict the County Council, with the support of the agricultural college, came to an agreement to have the building demolished, a decision which led to a public outcry. For a while nothing was done, but then a chance meeting at a London party between the manager of a Bedfordshire plastics company and the secretary of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings proved to be the critical fulcrum.

Rohan Sturdy had a sound personal reason for being enthused by what he heard about Maurward Old Manor from the SPAB secretary. He belonged to a scion of the Sturdys of Trigon near Wareham and accordingly felt his roots to lie in Dorset.
Sturdy was then living in Bedfordshire to be near his business, but in 1962 Dorset County Council leased the manor to him at a peppercorn rent, in return for an obligation on his part to restore it. For the next six years until 1968 contractors were at work on restoring the house almost every day. Sturdy’s daughter, who had a second home at Lulworth, also threw herself into this labour of love, taking on an assistant supervisory role.

Upon completion a grateful County Council even granted Sturdy a freehold on the property, though the businessman never lived there himself; neither did his son, a farmer in Gloucestershire, when in turn the house was bequeathed to him. For the next decade the house would be sub-let to tenants before being privately sold to the predecessors of the present owners.

During its years of dereliction the Old Manor suffered extensive deterioration in its structure and ground management. When the work of restoration began most of the windows had lost their glass and floors had collapsed from being infested with death watch beetle. Outside, the peace of the grounds was disturbed by the sound of clucking and crowing from henhouses on an adjoining chicken farm.

In his restoration, sturdy incorporated imitations and fittings from other houses. For example, restoration of some of the panelling was modelled on original panelling in Stinsford Church. The 17th century stairway tower was restored, recycling masonry from a demolished Tudor house in Weymouth, while the re-installed spiral staircase, which comes into use on the 1st floor, is said to have been made from the timber of a single oak grown on the Trigon estate. Another staircase was brought from Haddon Hall in Suffolk and installed in a new hall built into the space formerly occupied by the screens passage and part of the Great Kitchen. Sturdy also converted much of what had been the Great Hall into an L-shaped drawing room in which the original Tudor fireplace was re-exposed after removing eight layers of lathe and plaster.

The remaining space – actually the ground floor of the north wing – is now a spacious comfortable dining room. The new kitchen was installed between the drawing room and the large room occupying most of the ground floor space in the Greys extension wing. Access to the drawing room is through an imposing archway that Sturdy called ‘Angels arch’. He further re-inforced some of the original oak beams with girders or steel cradles and installed several bathrooms.

Under the present owners the voluminous and long-deserted attics have been modernised, and one has been converted into a luxurious bed sitting room. Maurward Old Manor is now in the formative years of a new life as a guesthouse, with three superb bed-and-breakfast suites installed on the 1st floor. For one of these suites a custom designed and made four-poster bed in Elizabethan style was commissioned, reproducing the family crest of the Maurwards on one side and that of the Greys on the other. Rusting glazing bars in the windows have been replaced with ones made of stainless steel, and in the garden an Elizabethan yew hedge has been planted.

The Old Kingston Maurward Manor is therefore effectively an “Elizabethan” manor built in the 1960’s! And on inspection it would be hard to imagine a reproduction more faithful to the original anywhere. Under the present owners devoted labours it has been given a new lease of life, and one in which it is earning a living for itself. The Old Manor is indeed a credit to Maurward Park.