Hinton House, Hinton St George (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Hinton St George.
In the historic county of Somerset.
Modern Authority of Somerset.
1974 county of Somerset.
Medieval County of Somerset.

OS Map Grid Reference: ST41801236
Latitude 50.90777° Longitude -2.82912°

Hinton House, Hinton St George has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

There used to be a very old manor house at Hinton, but all that is to be seen there now is a very fine manor house of freestone, which has in the inner courtyard two good tall castellated towers. It was built by Sir Amias Poulet, the father of the present owner, Sir Hugh Poulet, who has recently constructed a park on a hillside not far from his house. (Chandler 1993 transcription of John Leland)

By the end of the 14th century the manor-house stood in a complex of farm buildings including two stables, an oxhouse, at least one barn, a pigsty, and a dovecot. Margaret Denebaud's share of the house on her husband's death in 1390 included a 'messuage' in a court called the 'gustenchamber' on the east side of the hall, with rooms above and below between the chamber and a gateway by the hall, together with areas adjoining a great porch. The complex also included gardens to the north and south of a court, a lower garden, and various bartons. The house was evidently rebuilt by Sir Amias Poulett, occupier between 1487 and 1538. It was described in the 1540s as 'a right goodly manor place of freestone, with two goodly high towers embattled in the inner court'. In the 17th century the house was considered by Thomas Gerard 'ancient yet very stately and of curious building', and by Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, a visitor in the 1660s, as 'very different from the common style'.
The medieval house occupied the area of the south-west corner of the present building and was of conventional plan, having a central hall with porch and oriel to the west, service rooms to the north and north-east, and a parlour cross-wing on the south. In the later 16th century a central entrance porch was built between the oriel and the old porch, which became a second oriel, and new wings of ten bays were built out from each end of the front to enclose a forecourt. By this time there may also have been a small courtyard, which was probably of medieval origin, to the east of the hall. (VCH)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1175284
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 193481.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 59001.

Books
- Dunning, R.W. (ed), 1978, VCH Somerset Vol. 4 p. 41-44 online transcription
  Pevsner, N., 1958, Buildings of England: South and west Somerset (London, Penguin) p. 198
Periodical Articles
- Bethell, A., 1872, 'Sir Amias Paulet' Proceeding of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society Vol. 12 p. 63–9 online copy
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 421
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 160 online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio