XXV 111. FIRST WINTER MEETING. 



I have myself, at one time or other, paid many visits to the " Lodge 

 Farm," and have recently had the advantage of the help of a gentleman, 

 an architect by profession, temporarily resident in Wimborne, whose 

 hobby is the careful study of ancient buildings. He has spent several 

 days in studying the house, has taken careful measurements, and has 

 made it the special object of his thoughtful consideration. I have 

 made free use of his notes in the following observations. 



The building may be divided into two distinct portions. The 

 original portion is built of stone (rubble work). The external measure- 

 ments are 33 feet by 23 feet. The walls are 3 feet thick ! Judging by 

 the original roof, the date would be sometime in the fourteenth century. 

 There were, in the first instance, neither floors, partitions, staircase, 

 fireplaces, nor chimneys the walls being probably unplastered. The 

 entrance door would doubtless be larger than is the present one on the 

 South Front, though the thick plaster, with which the whole of that 

 front is now covered, prevents any part of the wall from being seen 

 and, consequently, the alteration in the size of the entrance from being 

 traced. 



The later portion, the kitchen building, was probably added, with 

 the floors, some of the windows, and all other features in the main 

 building notably the staircase when it was decided to turn the 

 building into a dwellinghouse. The brickwork of which it is composed, 

 being of the kind known as " Old English Bond " (or alternate courses 

 of headers and stretchers), shows almost conclusively that it was added 

 at least 250 years ago. The feet of the curved braces of the roof were 

 cut off in order to allow the floor of the top story to be inserted. The 

 fireplaces, as the west front shows clearly, were an addition formed in 

 the thickness of the walls. 



There is a gieat variety in the fittings, floors, windows, &c., &c. 

 scarcely two being alike. The stone heads to some of the windows, 

 internally, are of the fourteenth century. There is an interesting 

 piece of screen work which is used as a partition on the first floor. 

 And a considerable portion of the flooring (first floor) is paved with 

 bricks laid flat angularly. But what the construction of the floor is, 

 or why it was thus paved, for the weight must be considerable, cannot 

 at the present time be seen or known owing to the plaster on the 

 underside of the ceiling. 



The gentleman to whom I am indebted for his careful study of the 

 building is of the opinion that the main building was originally (in 

 the fourteenth century) erected as a tithe barn ; * and that the windows 



* There was a barn at Kingston which, with the tithes arising in 

 Kingston, belonged to the second prebend at Wimborne Minster. 

 Hutchins' Hist, of Dorset, Vol. III., p. 192). 



