Image ID: 14703

Hodsock Priory, Hodsock, c 1900s

Hodsock Lane
Hodsock
England

Front view of the Priory viewed from the N.W. There is actually no record of any Priory here, and the reason for naming this house Hodsock Priory is unknown. According to Domesday Book, Ulsi was the pre-Conquest owner of Hodsock. Next came Torald de Lisoriis, who held his land from de Bush, and had two ploughs and three sokemen here. Then followed the Cressys, Cliftons, and Mellishs. Hodsock has, therefore, only had four families as owners since 1066. It is difficult to reconstruct in imagination the old hall of which the gateway formed part. There is no evidence of a pre-Conquest residence there, apart from some roman remains which have been found there. The Cressys must have had a mansion at Hodsock, for we know that two kings stayed there. The moat belongs to their time. The present gateway is said to date from the times of the Cliftons, and was probably part of a mansion built very early in the 16th century. When Dugdale recorded his Visitation in 1662, he mentioned the name of Robert Clifton as appearing on a scroll, along with some shields, over a bay-window of the hall. This would seem to suggest that the hall, if not the gateway, was built very early in the 16th century. The Cliftons left about 1653. The hall gradually fell into ruins and was later used as a farmhouse. There is nothing to indicate whether the house, of which the gateway formed part, was a two-storey or a three-storey building, and we should only be guessing if we attempt to describe a building of which so little is left. There are good grounds for assuming that there would be a quadrangular courtyard, of which the gateway and the small sections of wall on either side of it would form one of the three sides, the opposite side possibly being formed by the hall itself. But nothing is known of the size of the building. We can, however, see that in the main, the bricks are laid in alternate rows of ends and sides, in the manner of the English Bond, as was the case till Queen Anne's time. In the year 1765, Sir Gervase Clifton sold this estate to the Mellish family, then seated at Blyth. The Mellishs moved to Hodsock in 1806. By 1829 the Mellish family had built the present mansion. Colonel Mellish was a great figure in racing and gambling circles in the early 19th century. After a period of service in the Peninsula, he returned home and settled down at Hodsock to the quiet life of a country gentleman, useful and popular, though greatly impoverished. He had, at one time, thirty-eight racehorses in training and others in proportion'up to about one hundred in all. When engaged in losing his money at the gaming table, he would drop as much as

Date: 1900

Organisation Reference: NCCN001110

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