Wymering Manor
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Wymering Manor is the oldest buiding in the city of Portsmouth, England and was the manor house of Wymering, a settlement mentioned in the Domesday Book. It is first recorded in 1042, when it was owned by King Edward the Confessor. After the Battle of Hastings it became the property of King William the Conqueror, until 1084.
The majority of the current buiding is 16th century in construction. However, there still exists parts that contain Roman and medieval materials. The cellars are reputedly Saxon in origin. The early origins of the site are supported by archaeology of the area that implies that the area has been inhabited since at least the Roman period.
Inside the manor is a spacious hall which is dominated by twin Jacobean staircases and gallery with barley sugar twist balusters. The panelled walls and pilasters are in building styles associated with the Tudor Elizabethan period. Two priest-holes are also located in the house.
Wyymering, which came to the Bigg-Withers on the death in 1768 of Rev. Richard Harris, brother of Jane Harris, who was the mother of Lovelace Bigg, is of special interest to the family as the home of the Rev. Charles Blackstone (Vicar of Wymering 1774-1804) and of Harris Bigg-Wither from his marriage (1804) to the death of his father, Lovelace Bigg-Wither, in 1813. Here Harris Bigg-Wither's six elder children were born.
The history of the manor has been sketched by Mrs. Andrew Davies in her History of Cosham (pub. 1906). At the time of the Domesday Survey (1086) it was held by William the Conqueror in demesne as it had been by King Edward the Confessor, in connection with Portchester Castle.
In the thirteenth century the manor was granted first to Fulkes de Wymering and afterwards to William de Fortibus, and was held of the King by military service at Portchester.
In 1285 Edward I granted the manor to John le Botelier, in whose family it remained for a century; it then passed to the Waytes, from whom it passed in 1570 by marriage to the Brunnings, a well-known Roman Catholic family. On the death of Edward Bruning, aged 98, in 1707 the manor changed hands several times until in 1761 the Rev. Richard Harris (great-grandson of Warden Harris), Vicar of Wyrmering and Rector of Wydley, bought a moiety of the manor from Sir Edward Worsley, and in 1768 the rest of the manor from William Smith.
The Rev. Richard Harris died without issue and intestate in 1768, and the manor went to his nephew and heir at law, Lovelace Bigg, who in 1783 added to the property 127 acres by purchase from Lord Dormer.
In 1835 the old manor house and sixty-eight acres was sold by the Rev. Lovelace Bigg-Wither for £5000 to Mr. John Martin, who had long been tenant, and the rest of the property, comprising about 336 acres with house, was sold in 1858 to Rev. G. Nugee and Mr. Thos. Thistlethwayte for £14,827. 14s. 8d.
Wymering Manor is linked with St Peter & St Paul Church and churchyard, which is the last resting place for Jane Austen’s brother Vice Admiral Sir Francis Austen and his family. Sir Francis (1774 - 1865), served on one of Nelson’s ships and eventually became Admiral of the Fleet.
In the 1930s the owner was a designer for Airspeed, and during this period Nevil Shute the novelist and Amy Johnson both visited the Manor.
The manor then passed into the ownership of Portsmouth City Council, who leased it to the Youth Hostel Association for this period. During this time the Manor became a favourite of ghost hunters from across the UK, who visited regularly in the hope of seeing one of the many ghosts claimed to patrol the house.
In 2006 the manor was sold to a private organisation after the cost of the upkeep became too much for the council. The purchasers intend to restore the manor and turn it into a hotel, trading on the historic and paranormal links after a visit by Most Haunted Live in May 2006.
