Creech Grange

Creech Grange
Creech Grange
	Country house, manor house
Location	Steeple, Dorset, UK
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	50°38′25″N 2°07′38″W / 50.6403°N 2.12722°W
Construction started	1540
Completed	1559
Client	Sir Oliver Lawrence

Creech Grange is a

National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.^[2]

History

The house was built by Sir Oliver Lawrence (1507–1559), who acquired the land from the former

Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. Lawrence was the brother-in-law of Henry's Lord Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton

.

Lawrence was an ancestor of the first American president, George Washington, and the joint arms of the two families - the stars and stripes of Washington's signet ring and the American flag - appear in memorials at Steeple and Affpuddle.

Creech Grange was sold to Nathaniel Bond in 1691,^[3] and the family still hold their Purbeck estates. It was Thomas Bond who in Stuart times laid out the London Street over fields of swamp and refuse tips and lost a fortune in the process.

Only fragments remain of the original house built by Lawrence before his death in 1559, partly because it was damaged by fire by the Parliamentarians during the

Tudor

style.

In 1746, Denis Bond erected a

Purbeck Ridge, Ridgeway Hill (199 m). The folly is now owned by the National Trust. Creech Grange is not to be confused with neighbouring East Creech

Manor that was in the possession of Walter Le Franke in 1224 and passed down through his family to Mary Franke in 1637, who married Edmund Hayter (d. 1657), and was sold out of that family in 1770.

View

There are panoramic views from nearby

Lady St Mary in the old town of Wareham stands proud. Poole Harbour assumes dominance as the view moves north-easterly, its southern shore dominated by the deep green of Rempstone Forest. After the blur of the Poole/Bournemouth conurbation, the ruins of Corfe Castle

conclude the sweep as the eastern view disappears into the Purbeck Ridge.

SSSI

Part of the estate is a 0.1-hectare (0.25-acre) biological

Greater Horseshoe Bats.^[4]

Gallery

Creech Grange near Wareham, Dorset
Creech: chapel of St. John
Grange Arch on the Purbeck ridgeway
Creech Grange from the Arch

References

^ Historic England. "Creech Grange (1304916)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
^ Historic England. "Creech Grange (1000532)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
^ John Ferris, ‘Bond, Nathaniel (1634–1707)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 25 Oct 2009
^ English Nature citation sheet for the site (accessed 29 August 2006)

[EH-1] Historic England. "Creech Grange (1304916)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 15 June 2014.

[park-2] Historic England. "Creech Grange (1000532)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 11 February 2016.

[3] John Ferris, ‘Bond, Nathaniel (1634–1707)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 25 Oct 2009

[4] English Nature citation sheet for the site (accessed 29 August 2006)

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