Charborough Park

Charborough House, also known as Charborough Park, is a grade I listed building, the manor house of the ancient manor of Charborough. The house is situated between the villages of Sturminster Marshall and Bere Regis in Dorset, England. The grounds, which include a deer park and gardens, adjoin the villages of Winterborne Zelston, Newton Peveril and Lytchett Matravers: they are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, and have been called the most splendid parkland in Dorset.

The estate is listed as a manor in the Domesday Book of 1086. It was later acquired during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) by Walter I Erle (c.1520-1581), an officer of the Privy Chamber to King Edward VI and to his sisters Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I. He married Mary Weekes, one of the 5 daughters and co-heiresses of Richard Weekes of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, Devon. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries he purchased the manor of Axmouth, formerly a possession of Syon Monastery. From the Erle family it descended by various female lines to the present owner Richard Drax, the Conservative Member of Parliament for South Dorset since 2010, a member of the quadruple-barrelled surnamed family of Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. The Erle (alias Earl, Earle, etc.) family originated in east Devon and moved to neighbouring Dorset in about 1500, but died out in the male line on the death of General Thomas III Erle (1650-1720) without male progeny. His daughter and sole heiress Frances Erle (d.1728) married Edward Ernle, to which family the estate passed. Female heiresses subsequently brought the Erle/Ernle estates to various other families. The surviving mansion house is in the centre of the park and incorporates parts of the original house built by Sir Walter II Erle (1586–1665) (grandson of Walter I), Military Governor of Dorchester and a Parliamentarian commander during the Civil War, whose forces besieged Corfe Castle in 1646. Stone and timber were taken from Corfe for use in the house's construction. He fought for the international Protestant cause as a volunteer in the Dutch army, and was present at the siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch. He was impressed by the Dutch fortifications and on his return home had the garden at Charborough "cut into redoubts and works" as he had seen. He also employed a Dutchman to make a decoy pool for duck shooting.

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