Gardens in the sea? - Intertidal structures in the Fleet, Dorset
A first for Dorset, this is perhaps the first time the remains of a formal garden have been discovered under the sea.
The Fleet is a long, narrow, tidal lagoon that lies behind Chesil Beach; a fourteen kilometre long shingle spit that connects the Isle of Portland, to the mainland of Dorset. Just below Moonfleet Manor Hotel (formerly Fleet Manor House) lies a complex of wall footings, the remains of a stone pier, and an artificial island (centred on SY 6199 8042). On the adjacent shore is a small wood, containing several exotic species and an artificial pond, now silted up.
The remains
The wall footings are all about 1.2 metres wide, carefully constructed of squared stone, and laid out to cut off a small bay in the Fleet shore. They have been removed on either side of the old pier, but its course is traceable by the raised bed of the Fleet and by the firmer substrate.
The Old Pier is now simply a heap of stones, at least three metres wide and 35 metres long. In a photograph of the 1920's it appears as a pier with a rowing boat tied up alongside. At the end was a lantern, a solid block of masonry at the end of the present 'pier' may be the remains of the footing for the lantern.
Gun Island is a small, artificial, island of an irregular shape, similar to a 'comma', about 14x9 metres across. It is surrounded by a vertical wall (1.2 metres high) of mortared masonry, filled with soil and grassed over. According to local tradition, probably correct, it was sometimes used as a stand for wildflowers from Fleet Manor House - hence 'Gun Island'.
A section of the present Fleet shoreline, behind Gun Island, has been reinforced with a low stone wall. The more westerly sections are in a very poor condition and, in places, only the footings survive.
Finds
Apart from a scatter of modern debris only one object has found within the area defined by the wall footings, which might relate to the structures. This is an irregularly shaped piece of stone, one side of which was smoothed, with a square mortise hole about 2.5cm square and 5cm deep.
What is it?
Whilst the function of the old pier is clear, the wall footings and 'Gun Island' do not seem to be explicable in purely practical terms. The Fleet is very shallow beyond the walls (no more than 1 metre deep at high tide) and the land enclosed is hardly sufficient to make the effort of draining it for agricultural purposes worthwhile. If not practical, could they have an aesthetic function? could they be associated with earlier gardens of Fleet Manor House.
The house was first built in the mid seventeenth century, enlarged over the centuries, and by the mid eighteenth century, was surrounded by formal gardens Unfortunately the surviving views of the house do not include the Fleet shore, though it is probable that the gardens stretched down to the Fleet, as the later Victorian ones did. It is suggested that the main walls, the footings of which survive today, were built at this time. This would have enclosed the bay and allowed the land behind them to be grassed over, so creating a formal terrace along the shore of the Fleet. This would be very similar to structures known to have been built beside lakes at this period. The stone with the mortise hole could have formed the base of a statue or urn. Such terraces would have been unlikely to survive the year 1824 when a violent storm devastated this part of Dorset, and virtually destroyed the neighbouring village of Fleet.
It is known that the grounds of Fleet manor were extensively refurbished in the late 1820's and early 30's, and it is likely that, at this time, Gun Island was constructed, perhaps using the ruins of the earlier walls. At the same time the low wall built along the edge of the Fleet and a nearby stream was diverted and dammed to create a pond surrounded by exotic shrubs. This would form a fashionable 'wilderness' with Gun Island as a place for picnics and shooting parties, it is still used for the former purpose.
As far as is known this is the first time that possible garden features have been identified in an intertidal or maritime context. There may well be others, particularly where the grounds of large houses bordered estuaries or large bays.
