Place Farm is a complex of medieval buildings in the village of Tisbury,

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. They originally formed a

grange Grange may refer to: Buildings * Grange House, Scotland, built in 1564, and demolished in 1906 * Grange Estate, Pennsylvania, built in 1682 * Monastic grange, a farming estate belonging to a monastery Geography Australia * Grange, South Austral ...

Shaftesbury Abbey Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was founded in about 888, and dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation by the order of Thomas Cromwell, minister to King Henry VIII. At the time it was the second ...

. The farmhouse, the inner and outer gatehouses and the barn, reputedly the largest in England, are all

Grade I listed buildings 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 ...

History and description

was founded by

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...

in 888. The first religious foundation established for women in England, Alfred's daughter, Æthelgifu was installed as abbess. By the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, the abbey had become a very wealthy institution, and it established the

at Place Farm as the administrative centre of its Wiltshire estates.

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

, in his ''Wiltshire''

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, da ...

, dates the buildings at Place Farm to the 14th and 15th centuries.

Anthony Quiney Anthony Prosper Quiney , RAI (born 1935) is an architectural historian, building archaeologist, writer and photographer who has lived in Blackheath for many years. Dr. Quiney is Professor Emeritus of Architectural History at the University of Gree ...

describes the "magnificent scale" of the complex. The Victoria County History notes that the ancillary features included two chapels, two larder houses, stables, houses for oxen, hay, and charcoal, and a number of fishponds. Margaret Wood, in her history, ''The Medieval English House'', wrote that although the gatehouses are not properly defensive in a military sense, they would provide protection "against bands of marauders or discontented peasantry". At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 Place Farm passed into private ownership. In the 19th century, the farm became part of the Fonthill estate of the Morrison family, who continue in ownership. The tithe barn is let to Messum's, the art dealers, while other farm buildings are occupied by the charity, International Cat Care. The farm house at Place Farm is a

Grade I listed building 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 ...

. Dating mainly from the 15th century, it was renovated in the 19th. It is constructed of

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionary ...

stone, with a tiled roof. A room in the house has a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

which carries the initials AM, that probably reference the collector

Alfred Morrison Alfred Morrison (1821 – 22 December 1897) was an English collector, known for his interest in works of art, autographs and manuscripts. Life The second son of James Morrison (1790–1857) the textile businessman, he inherited from his father a ...

who owned the estate in the 19th century. The estate buildings which form three sides of a courtyard are listed Grade II. The

tithe barn A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing rents and tithes. Farmers were required to give one-tenth of their produce to the established church. Tithe barns were usually associated with the vi ...

, which at 200ft long is reputed to be the largest barn in England, has a Grade I listing. The barn was originally tiled, but now has a

thatched roof Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

, which was renewed in 1971. The barn is thirteen bays long, with a cruck truss roof structure. The inner and outer gatehouses are also listed at Grade I.

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

considers the complex at Place Farm, "one of the finest surviving groups of monastic grange buildings in England".

Gallery

File:Outer Gatehouse of Place Farm.jpg, Outer gatehouse File:Place Farm, Tisbury - geograph.org.uk - 326506.jpg, Inner gatehouse, to the left, and farmhouse File:The Tithe Barn at Place Farm - Tisbury - geograph.org.uk - 707316.jpg, Tithe barn File:Tithe Barn, Tisbury, from east.JPG, Tithe barn (long view)

Footnotes

References

Sources

* * * * {{Cite book , last=Wood , first=Margaret , title=The English Medieval House , url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/english-mediaeval-house/oclc/246597155?referer=br&ht=edition , year=1994 , origyear=1965 , publisher=Studio Editions , location=London , isbn= 978-1-858-91167-0 Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire Tithe barns in Europe Grade I listed agricultural buildings Barns in England