Chettle House is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

country manor house with

Queen Anne style architecture The Queen Anne style of British architecture refers to either the English Baroque architecture of the time of Queen Anne (who reigned from 1702 to 1714) or the British Queen Anne Revival form that became popular during the last quarter of the ...

Chettle Chettle is a small village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies northeast of Blandford Forum. It is sited at the head of a gently sloping valley on the dip slope of the chalk formation called Cranborne Chase. Th ...

, North Dorset, England, about northeast of the town of

Blandford Forum Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this ...

. It was built in 1710 for

George Chafin George Chafin or Chaffin (c. 1689 – 7 September 1766), of Chettle House, Dorset, England, was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1713 to 1754. Chafin was baptized on 7 January 1689, the fifth son of Tho ...

, to designs of the architect

Thomas Archer Thomas Archer (1668–1743) was an English Baroque architect, whose work is somewhat overshadowed by that of his contemporaries Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. His buildings are important as the only ones by an English Baroque architec ...

. The builders were William and Francis Smith from Warwick. The manor was bought by the banker

William Castleman William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...

in 1846, who together with his solicitor son

Charles Castleman Charles Martin Castleman (born 22 May 1941) is an American violinist and teacher. Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, he began violin lessons at the age of four with Ondricek. When he was six he appeared as a soloist with Arthur Fiedler and the Bost ...

built the first railway into Dorset in 1845–47 (the Southampton and Dorchester Railway, which was known as "Castleman's Corkscrew" because of its convoluted route). By that time the house "was a ruin used for storing grain, sans floors, ceilings or fireplaces", according to a 2019 report. During the renovations, the family modified some of the interior layout; that included lowering the north and south wings. Pevsner called it "the plum among Dorset houses of the early 18th century, and even nationally outstanding as a specimen of English Baroque". In 1946, the property was inherited by Esther Bourke who eventually converted it into a series of flats. As of 2010, the property was still owned by the Bourke family, who were also long-time owners of the entire community in a form of "benevolent feudalism". In May 2015, the manor was listed for sale at a guide price of £3.95m, and soon sold, "reputedly for more than 50% above the guide price", and was described by '' Country Life'' as "arguably, the country-house sale of 2015". The article described the property as "the magnificent, 14,580sq ft mansion, set in 117 acres of gardens, grounds, parkland and woodland, needed substantial renovation". The new owners planned to restore the house into a single family private home. As of late 2020, the owners were Tom and Rosamond Sweet-Escott, who received a Georgian Group award the previous year for the restoration they had completed, with the guidance of Hugh Petter of Adam Architecture. A November 2020 article in ''Country Life'' highlighted the results of the work and documented them with photographs.

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{{coord, 50.91808, -2.07051, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade I listed buildings in Dorset Grade I listed houses Country houses in Dorset English Baroque architecture