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

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, 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 * The Grange (Toronto), Toronto, Ontario, built in 1817 * Monastic grange, a farming estate belonging to ...

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

. 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 is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History and description

was founded by

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 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 both died when Alfr ...

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 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, 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'' (195 ...

, in his ''Wiltshire'' Pevsner, dates the buildings at Place Farm to the 14th and 15th centuries. Anthony Quiney 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 Morrison may refer to: People * Morrison (surname), people with the Scottish surname Morrison * Morrison Heady (1829–1915), American poet * Morrison Mann MacBride (1877–1938), Canadian merchant Places in the United States * Morrison, Colorad ...

, who continue in ownership. The tithe barn is let to

Messum's Messums Org is a collaborative space designed for artists, collectors, and thinkers. It serves as both a virtual and physical network for engaging with creative expression across various artistic genres. Originally founded as Messums Wiltshire ...

, 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 is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. 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 Dictionar ...

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

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

which carries the initials AM, that probably reference the collector Alfred Morrison 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 ...

, 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 Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

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 , year=1994 , orig-date=1965 , publisher=Studio Editions , location=London , isbn= 978-1-858-91167-0 , oclc=246597155 Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire Tithe barns in Europe Grade I listed farmhouses in England Grade I listed barns in England