Knighton Gorges Manor (site)

OVERVIEW

Knighton Gorges was a manor house of the twelfth century onwards below Knighton Down, enlarged into one of the finest houses on the island and described by Sir Henry Englefield; it entertained Sir Richard Worsley's set and the painter Morland. In 1821 its owner George Maurice Bisset had it demolished rather than let his daughter, who had married a clergyman against his wishes, inherit it. The gateposts and drive remain.

HISTORY

Island tradition gives the house a curse from Hugh de Morville, one of Thomas Becket's murderers, who is said to have fled there in 1170, and a run of misfortunes through the Dillington and Bisset families, including a squire's suicide concealed by his valet in 1721. Bisset's demolition is the documented fact.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The tradition is that on New Year's Eve the house reappears at midnight, lit, with music and a coach in the drive, and that stone beasts stand on the gate pillars that are not there by day; people gather on the lane to wait. Gay Baldwin's Ghosts of Knighton Gorges collects the accounts; the island's tourist board repeats them. Nothing is established except the gateposts and the story.

VISITING

The gateposts are on a private lane off the Newchurch road; view from the public road. No parking, no access to the grounds.