The Moor
The first Penoyre to build on the site in Clifford (grid ref. SO4324) was probably John Penoyre who was married to Margaret daughter of Jenkin William ap john of Grosmont and descended from Lydddan Lord of Grosmont in the early fifteenth century. His grandson Jenkyn ap Llewellyn was born in 1452 and said to be living at the Moor in 1483.
His grandson Howell who was married to Margaret Whitney of Upper Court Clifford, rebuilt or extended the house, and this Elizabethan structure became the back part of the house when their descendants put on a Georgian extension in the eighteenth century, which can be seen in the side view of the house taken in 1928 under the nineteenth century additions of pillars and pinnacles.
The Moor was again extended between 1827 and 1829 for Anna Maria Brodbelt Stallard-Penoyre by George Phillips Manners, who was appointed City Architect of Bath in 1823, when Anna Maria’s father Francis Rigby Brodbelt had a house in Batheaston. The photo of the front of the Moor shows Manners’ mix of Gothic and Jacobean styles.
The house was rented out from the late nineteenth century until after the Second World War, when no tenants could be found to take it on and it was demolished. The photo taken from above in the dry summer of 2018 shows the outlines of the walls of the house and separate stables and barns.
The Tower & Obelisk
The Tower was built in about 1830 and was also designed by George Philip Mannners. Originally the interior consisted of a spiral staircase ascending to one room with four large windows showing the wonderful views to the Black Mountains and the Wye Valley but after much use by the armed forces stationed at the Moor during the Second World War the stairs disintegrated and the roof fell in and it was just four bare stone walls open to the sky. It is currently being restored for use as holiday accommodation.
The obelisk is the remaining one of two built by Anna Maria Brodbelt in 1827 as a memorial to her father Francis Rigby Brodbelt. These were again designed by Manners as well as a gothic arch folly, of which there is now no trace. It is thought that they also served both as unemployment projects and a use for stone cleared from the surrounding fields.
The Walled Garden was also built by Anna Maria and her mother with stone on the outside and brick on the inside as a warmer layer for fruit trees to be trained against. It ceased to be used as a garden when the house was demolished in 1951.
They also made an extensive area with paths, fruit trees and a fountain as shown in part of a map of 1848.
The pond which was overlooked by the house still attracts swans which have sometimes nested there in recent years.
It is fed by a spring and the overflow forms a stream down the hill and two further ponds.
PROPERTY ON THE ESTATE
