Sherborne House is one of the oldest buildings in Lyme Regis, possibly the oldest. It may have been around three centuries old when it withstood the siege of 1644.
It stands at the top of Broad Street, the little seaport’s short steep main street. Viewing it from the street, you can see that there is a three-part facade, extending to the corner of Sherborne Lane. This facade, with a row of ornamental urns along the parapet, was added around or before 1800, as part of a remodelling into a “gentleman’s house.” The symmetrical unity expressed by the facade was later obscured when the left and right parts of the ground floor were sold off as shops, and the upper left rooms as an apartment, thus separating Sherborne House from Sherborne Lane.
(“Sherborne” is the earliest recorded name in Lyme. King Cynewulf of Wessex in 774 granted land here, for salt-panning, to the monks of Sherborne Abbey.)
Before its gentrification, the house may have been a farmhouse, at the edge of the small town. Five huge “cruck” arches of jointed timbers formed the skeleton, and still show in various places.
It stands at the top of Broad Street, the little seaport’s short steep main street. Viewing it from the street, you can see that there is a three-part facade, extending to the corner of Sherborne Lane. This facade, with a row of ornamental urns along the parapet, was added around or before 1800, as part of a remodelling into a “gentleman’s house.” The symmetrical unity expressed by the facade was later obscured when the left and right parts of the ground floor were sold off as shops, and the upper left rooms as an apartment, thus separating Sherborne House from Sherborne Lane.
(“Sherborne” is the earliest recorded name in Lyme. King Cynewulf of Wessex in 774 granted land here, for salt-panning, to the monks of Sherborne Abbey.)
Before its gentrification, the house may have been a farmhouse, at the edge of the small town. Five huge “cruck” arches of jointed timbers formed the skeleton, and still show in various places.
