# Creech Grange

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Country house in Steeple, Dorset, England

Creech Grange Creech Grange Interactive map of the Creech Grange area General information Type Country house, manor house Location Steeple, Dorset, UK, United Kingdom Coordinates 50°38′25″N 2°07′38″W / 50.6403°N 2.12722°W / 50.6403; -2.12722 Construction started 1540 Completed 1559 Client Sir Oliver Lawrence

**Creech Grange** is a [country house](/source/English_country_house) in [Steeple](/source/Steeple%2C_Dorset), south of [Wareham](/source/Wareham%2C_Dorset) in Dorset at the foot of the [Purbeck Hills](/source/Purbeck_Hills). [Historic England](/source/Historic_England) designate it as a Grade I [listed building](/source/Listed_building).[1] The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the [National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens](/source/National_Register_of_Historic_Parks_and_Gardens).[2]

## History

The house was built by Sir Oliver Lawrence (1507–1559), who acquired the land from the former [Bindon Abbey](/source/Bindon_Abbey), near Wool, after the [Dissolution of the Monasteries](/source/Dissolution_of_the_Monasteries) in 1539. Lawrence was the brother-in-law of Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, [Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton](/source/Thomas_Wriothesley%2C_1st_Earl_of_Southampton).

Lawrence was an ancestor of the first American president, [George Washington](/source/George_Washington), and the joint arms of the two families - the stars and stripes of Washington's signet ring and the American flag - appear in memorials at Steeple and [Affpuddle](/source/Affpuddle).

Creech Grange was sold to [Nathaniel Bond](/source/Nathaniel_Bond) in 1691,[3] and the family still hold their Purbeck estates. It was Thomas Bond who in Stuart times laid out the London Street over fields of swamp and refuse tips and lost a fortune in the process.

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 [English Civil War](/source/English_Civil_War), and finally because in 1846 the entire front was taken down and rebuilt in the [Tudor](/source/Tudorbethan_architecture) style.

In 1746, Denis Bond erected a [folly](/source/Folly) known as [Grange Arch](/source/Grange_Arch) on the highest local point on the [Purbeck Ridge](/source/Purbeck_Ridge), [Ridgeway Hill](/source/Ridgeway_Hill) (199 m). The folly is now owned by the [National Trust](/source/National_Trust). Creech Grange is not to be confused with neighbouring [East Creech](/source/East_Creech) Manor that was in the possession of Walter Le Franke in 1224 and passed down through his family to Mary Franke in 1637, who married Edmund Hayter (d. 1657), and was sold out of that family in 1770.

## View

There are panoramic views from nearby [Creech Barrow Hill](/source/Creech_Barrow_Hill). Though part of the Purbeck Hills, Creech Barrow stands out, detached. The church tower of [Lady St Mary](/source/Lady_St._Mary_Church%2C_Wareham) in the old town of Wareham stands proud. [Poole Harbour](/source/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](/source/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](/source/Site_of_Special_Scientific_Interest), notified in 1977. The outbuildings are an important roosting site for [Greater Horseshoe Bats](/source/Greater_Horseshoe_Bat).[4]

## Gallery

		- Creech Grange near Wareham, Dorset

		- Creech: chapel of St. John

		- [Grange Arch](/source/Grange_Arch) on the Purbeck ridgeway

		- Creech Grange from the Arch

## References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to [Creech Grange](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Creech_Grange).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-EH_1-0)** [Historic England](/source/Historic_England). ["Creech Grange (1304916)"](https://HistoricEngland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1304916?section=official-list-entry). *[National Heritage List for England](/source/National_Heritage_List_for_England)*. Retrieved 15 June 2014.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-park_2-0)** Historic England. ["Creech Grange (1000532)"](https://HistoricEngland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000532?section=official-list-entry). *National Heritage List for England*. Retrieved 11 February 2016.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** John Ferris, ‘Bond, Nathaniel (1634–1707)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [accessed 25 Oct 2009](http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2830)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** [English Nature citation sheet for the site](http://www.english-nature.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/1003518.pdf) (accessed 29 August 2006)

v t e Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Dorset Abbotsbury Blind Lane Abbotsbury Castle Alder Hills Nature Reserve Aunt Mary's Bottom River Axe Babylon Hill Batcombe Down Belle Vue Quarry Bere Stream Black Hill Down Black Hill Heath Blashenwell Farm Pit Blandford Camp Blue Pool Boulsbury Wood Bradford Abbas Railway Cutting Brenscombe Heath Bryanston Canford Heath Chalbury Hill And Quarry Chesil Beach Christchurch Harbour Conegar Road Cutting Corfe & Barrow Hills Corton Cutting Creech Grange Crookhill Brick Pit Cull-Peppers Dish Ebblake Bog Frogden Quarry River Frome, Dorset Giant Hill, Cerne Abbas Goathill Quarry Holnest Lambert's Castle Lions Hill Lodmoor Oakers Bog Pitcombe Down Poole Bay Cliffs Poole Harbour Portland Poxwell Radipole Lake St Catherine's Hill Studland and Godlingston Heath Shillingstone Quarry Turbary Park Worgret Heath Neighbouring areas Devon Hampshire Somerset Wiltshire

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