Melbury House

[3][4] The mediaeval manor house of the Browning family was rebuilt after 1546 by Henry's great-grandson Sir Giles Strangways (1528–1562)[5] using ham stone from a quarry nine miles away.

Though Sir Giles lived extravagantly and encumbered his considerable estate with debts at his premature death, at Melbury he built a conservative house, "a courtyard with no frills", as Mark Girouard described it,[6] "apart from the one gesture of its tower".

This remarkable feature, a hexagonal tower, rises near the intersection of three ranges of buildings, filled above the level of adjoining roofbeams with banks of tall arched windows of many leaded panes that offer views in every direction over the rolling landscape of the park and the countryside beyond.

In accordance with the terms of his wife's inheritance from her childless brother in 1726, Thomas Horner adopted for himself and his descendants the surname and arms of Strangways.

[10] Thomas Hardy made use of Melbury House, as "King's Hintock Court", for passing mentions in "The Duke's Reappearance" in A Changed Man and Other Tales and in A Group of Noble Dames, 1891.