In a note attached to the pedigree of Trenchard it is stated that the first Sir Thomas Trenchard rebuilt the house at Wolfeton as it now stands, except some addition made by Sir George Trenchard; and there seems no reason to doubt this statement, for a study of the existing house shows very clearly two distinct dates of building. There are evidences, also, that Sir Thomas Trenchard’s rebuilding incorporated many portions of a still older edifice.
Mr. Hamilton Rogers, in his Sepulchral Effigies of Devon, says:
Their last heiress, Christian, daughter and heir of John de Mohun by Joan his wife, daughter of John Jurdain, of Wolveton, Charminster, married Henry Trenchard (obit 1477), of Hordull, Hants, and subsequently of Wolveton.
His descendant, Sir Thomas Trenchard (ob. 1505), rebuilt this fine old mansion, and carved on escutcheons over the gateway; and first among the noble series of genealogical shields in the hall windows were the arms of Trenchard. Traces of the great Devonshire family of the Mohuns are not infrequently found in Dorset.
The elevation of the south front of Wolfeton House remains very much as originally erected, and is of two distinct styles of architecture—the portion of the building to the east being in the Tudor-Gothic, probably of the time of Henry VII., and the west portion in the Elizabethan, or, more probably, Jacobean style. The latter portion is a picturesque example of this pseudo-classical style of architecture and nothing more. The older part of the building, however, possesses features which are worthy of notice, as the rich labels over the windows are composed of hollow mouldings filled with rolls of sculptured fruit and foliage, and terminating in quaint corbels carved with great spirit.
Hutchins says:
The ancient seat of the Trenchards here is a noble building, and at the time when it was built perhaps the best in the country; it is a large fabric, its principal fronts to the east and south. On the north it is sheltered by a grove of trees.
One enters on the east into what formerly was a small court, and on both sides of the gate is a round tower. In this front are many windows, almost all of them different from each other, as if the architect had studied irregularity. This seems to have been the humour of that age, for Dugdale remarks that:
At Tixall, co. Stafford, the seat of the Lord Aston, there is a fine piece of masonry, built in the reign of Henry VIII.: though the windows are numerous, scarce two of them are alike, and there is the same variety of fretwork of the chimneys; so that the beauty of the structure in that age did not, as in the present, consist in uniformity, but in the greatest variety the artist could give.
On the north side of Wolfeton House there was a small cloister leading to what was the chapel, in which some of the family were married (within memory), but it has since been pulled down. To the west of the chapel there was a little court.