Here is a scene which has hardly changed sine the photograph was taken around the early years of the Twentieth Century.
St Ann’s Church Radipole and the Old Manor next door provides a wonderful rural aspect and is yet so close to the built up areas of Radipole and Southill.
Originally dedicated to St Mary it served as the parish church of Melcombe Regis. The present church dated from the Thirteenth century but it is believed that an older church occupied the site.
In 1605 a new church dedicated to St Mary was built at Melcombe Regis near the harbour as foreign pirates could visit the town whilst its inhabitants were away at service at Radipole. Radipole Church was rededicated to St Ann during the Nineteenth century. Further restoration in the 1960s included a vestry using stone from the Tudor House, 4 North Quay, shamefully demolished in 1961.
Next door is the Old Manor, the oldest part of which may have started life as a priest’s house owned by Cerne Abbey. In 1540 Henry Vlll granted the manor to Humphrey Watkins of Holwell who passed it to his son who extended it.
In the late 1930s a Captain Pennington Legh bought it and it was restored by local Dorset architect Ernest Walmsley Lewis who oversaw a restoration over the next ten years. Legh who was Controller of Coastguards died in an heroic rescue attempt on Chesil Beach in 1944 and his widow served the community tirelessly as a Councillor and in other ways.
