APPULDURCOMBE HOUSE Appuldurcombe House stands as a roofless ruin near Wroxall, (it is currently undergoing renovation), protected from the prevailing south westerly winds by Stenbury Down, itself crowned by a ruined memorial to the Worsley family. The Worsleys owned Appuldurcombe for centuries but its history goes back many years before the family acquired the ancient house. The Saxons called this area Apuldor-cumb (the valley of the apple trees) and this accounts for the local pronunciation of the name - Appler-combe; shortly after the Norman conquest this orchard in a valley was given to the Abbey of Montebourg in Normandy, and the first task of the monks who lived here was to build the Priory of Appuldurcombe. The monks lived and worked here for 300 years until the suppression of alien priories by Henry V, of Agincourt fame, whence the land was leased to the Fry family and eventually passed into the hands ofthe Worsleys. ln 171 0 the priory, along with the old house which stood on the site, was demolished, and the building of the new Appuldurcombe House began, the task finally being completed in 1773. An obelisk commemorating the Worsley family was built of Cornish granite at the top of Stenbury Down in 1774, and this was struck by lightning in 1831 and reduced to its present size. The completed house had several distinguishing features, from its entrance near Godshill via the Fremantle Gate (which can still be seen today, a couple of fields away from the house) to the gardens laid our by Capability Brown, and stocked with deer. One curious fact remains: the house contained 365 windows to correspond with the number of days in the year; there were 52 rooms as there are 52 weeks of the year, and the number of staircases was seven, the number of days in the week.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 10:03:38 +0000
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