Creech Grange

Creech Grange is an elegant country house, south of Wareham at the foot of the Purbeck Hills.

History

The house was built by Sir Oliver Lawrence, who acquired the land from the former Bindon Abbey, near Wool, after Henry VIII had abolished the monasteries in 1539. Lawrence was the brother-in-law of Henry's Lord Chancellor.

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

Creech Grange was bought by Nathaniel Bond in 1691,^[1] and the family still hold their Purbeck estates. It was Thomas Bond who in Stuart times laid out the famous London Street over fields of swamp and refuse tips and lost a fortune.

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 Civil War, and finally because in 1846 the entire front was taken down and rebuilt in the local Tudor style.

View

There are panoramic from nearby Creech Barrow. Though part of the Purbeck Hills, Creech Barrow stands out, detached. The church tower of 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 Site of Special Scientific Interest, notified in 1977. The outbuildings are an important roosting site for Greater Horseshoe Bats.^[2]

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  Creech Grange near Wareham, Dorset

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  Creech: chapel of St. John

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  Grange Arch on the Purbeck ridgeway

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  Creech Grange from the Arch

References

1. ^ John Ferris, ‘Bond, Nathaniel (1634–1707)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 25 Oct 2009
2. ^ English Nature citation sheet for the site (accessed 29 August 2006)

Coordinates: 50°38′24″N 2°07′37″W / 50.6399°N 2.1269°W / 50.6399; -2.1269