Dean's Court is a lovely Georgian styled house situated in the south west of England, which has been occupied by the Hanham family for about 500 years. The current owners are Sir William and Lady Ali Hanham. It is set in the quintessentially english market town of Wimborne, Dorset.
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| Dean's Court - North façade |
The earliest building recorded on this site housed both monks and nuns, and dated from 705 AD. Since then it has had a lively history including being razed to the ground in 1015 by Danish Viking marauders. The house has changed in architectural character over the last near thousand years reflecting the architectural tastes of the time. During that period it has been closely linked with Wimborne Minster which is situated virtually next door. Fortunately, for whatever reason, the Hanhams have not made any major architectural changes since Georgian times, so we are now left to enjoy this lovely gem typical of that period, though the fly-over video on the Dean's Court website suggests that the buidlings behind the front range date from an earlier period - probably the Tudor/Jacobean period.
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| Wimborne Minster |
My interest lay mainly in the fact that this is a house where the ownership has survived in the same family for a very long period; from the Tudor Period to the present day. The Hanham family are typical of many of the remaining Aristocratic families in that they have successfully adapted to changing times. Their history includes strategic marriages, surviving the perils of religious affiliation during Tudor times, the Civil War, the supervision of Napoleonic prisoners of war, and a major societal Scandal in the nineteenth century - to name but a few of the more common situations in which many families of this ilk found themselves.
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| Dean's Court East face. |
I imagine that my literary creation, Norcombe Abbey New Hall, one of the main houses featured in the Brockworth Chronicles, to be a rather larger version of Dean's Court, and would have been built in honey-coloured Cotswold Stone rather than red brick! But the general look of the building and architectural nuances would be the same, just scaled up quite a lot.
The above picture inspired my ideas as to how the New Hall might look (minus the topiary), from across the valley, viewing from Norcombe Abbey Old Hall . It would be sort of view that Lady Isabel might gaze out upon when she was playing her piano (see Lady Isabel's Inheritance on Amazon).
Places like Dean's Court and Wimborne Minster are 21st Century survivors that, thanks to the tenacity of generations of families and caretakers, still allow us to glimpse into the lives of those whose stories provide the bedrock of the history of England.
Dean's Court is open to visitors on a limited basis, and is a popular venue for weddings and other large entertainments. You can visit their website here
