St Georges Church Fordington about 1903
trees and new flats are built in the garden to its left. The open land
where Jersey cows once grazed is now built upon
although the houses are also hidden by the trees
cut up by a new road and built on with overpowering blocks of flats and
town houses mostly ignored for the purpose of this illustration.
in an open area to
the south of Fordington Church. Accordingly, Maen, pronounced "marn" with the mildest of Dorset burr,
was an appropriate name and just fine.Sadly, Maen is nothing more than a commercial office today and its grounds (coyly named Rosewood Gardens) have been developed with town houses and flats that overwhelm this once proud home. Although there was a movement to prevent this disproportionate development, there are now those who would rather see Maen demolished than suffer from such desecration.
Aileen Buzzard (daughter of Edward Duke born in 1895) wrote in 1988 "My Father owned the land where Maen was
built for as long as I can remember. We used to call it "the Plot". The lawyers firm of Andrews and Huxtable in
Dorchester handled the legal business and the Huxtables owned the land next to Maen where they built a house
and lived in it. The land right down to Icen Way was open fields and grazed by Jersey Cows belonging to the Pope
family at Southcourt. (This is the open land shown in the top photograph on the left)
The architect was Mowlem and Palmer of Swanage. Mr Mowlem was on friendly terms with my Father. The stone was
quarried at Swanage. Smith was the name of the quarrying firm and the brother of the owner was the stonemason
who laid the stones of the house.
Each stone was laid by Billy Smith.
The building took some time to build as he was quite often off
work owing to drink and my father would not allow any substitute to take over the building work.
The grounds were laid out by an expert from Kew Gardens who stayed with us at Maen whilst planning the layout.
He was Mr Goldring".