The history of Chettle House

Continuing our history series in which we focus on commissions to restore and extend historic buildings, we turn our attention to Chettle House, in Dorset. This remarkable house by Baroque architect Thomas Archer, was restored and reconfigured by ADAM Partner Hugh Petter. Detailed historic research was by Senior Architectural Historian Dr Helen Lawrence-Beaton. Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank also consulted on the project.

There has been a property at Chettle for centuries, owned by the Chafins, a family of textile merchants from Salisbury.

However, the existing house was created for George Chafin (1689-1766), shortly after he inherited the estate in 1711. In July 2015 Chettle House was acquired by our clients, who embarked upon a major project of restoration.

The design is attributed to the English Baroque architect Thomas Archer (1668-1743) who, coincidentally, was Helen’s PhD research subject. Archer’s design was set on an unusual plan with curved corner closets that addressed different parts of the surrounding landscape. Originally the roof featured a huge split pediment, a treatment not known to have been favoured by any other English architect. To the east, Archer designed a dramatic double-height hall and staircase, with a gallery from which the Chafins would survey their landscape.

By 1846, when the estate was sold to the Castleman family, the mansion had fallen into disrepair, with little investment for almost a century. Family papers described the house as ‘...practically a ruin, no floors or ceilings’ and ‘used for storing grain’.

The Castlemans made alterations to Archer’s plan, creating a large new drawing room, adding two new lengths of landing to the stair hall, and removing one of the two original spiral staircases at the centre of the house. One of the most dramatic changes was the demolition of the curved north and south ends of the house at first floor level, as recorded in several historic photographs. The other was the removal of Archer’s remarkable split pediment roofline, possibly due to being struck by lightning.

The house entered another phase of renovations in the 20th century after the marriage of Edward Castleman III to an heiress. The new wealth enabled fresh investment in the estate and c.1912the curved end bays were reconstructed.

After the Second World War, the house was turned into apartments. At that time, concrete was poured into the basement to raise the floor level over a metre in height, altering the proportions of Archer’s original brick vaulted spaces.

The work by ADAM Architecture returned Chettle to a single private dwelling, with the building sensitively adapted and the basement fully restored. New additions included a walled terrace garden on the site of a modern extension, and a new pool house within part of the restored kitchen garden. More recently, a new pair of cottages designed in the manner of a Baroque stable range, have created accommodation for local families. The landscape has been transformed by landscape architect Pip Morrison.

The ebb and flow in the fortunes of previous owners has made the story of Chettle a fascinating tale of architectural decline and rebirth over the centuries.

Dr Helen Lawrence-Beaton’s book THOMAS ARCHER A Forgotten Baroque Master was published in September 2026 by Unicorn Publishing.