History Trail
Town Map
Tree Trail
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Museum of East Dorset
aka “Priests House Museum”
The museum is housed in a sixteenth century
building that at the start was a single story stone house. An upper story was added in the seventeenth century and from the 1680s the Bowridge family lived there -
selling to repay debts.
The Wimborne Community Theatre history page shows owners and occupants through to the Cole’s family taking over residence in the early 1870s [It was Hilda Coles who ran the museum of local collections from 1962 through to 1987 when it was bequeathed
to the town under the care
of the Minster Governors …
“ to be used as a museum for local people” ]
It seems never to have been the house of a priest -
The attractive and secluded garden is almost 100 metres in length being originally a ’burgage’ plot of the house. (Usually 20 rods or poles and
one house oak-
The area contained within each burgage plot is therefore around ¼ acre)
The narrowness of such plots stems back to the Lord of the manor creating as many ‘frontages’ on a street as possible so as to increase income -
for money. Until 1832. In these ‘Burgage Borough’ areas, the right to vote for a member
of parliament was attached to the occupation
of particular burgage tenements
