Upton House is a late Georgian, Grade 2 Listed Building situate within Upton Country Park, the present structure having been built circa 1816.

Prior to this, the Estate at Upton, is one of the oldest sites in Poole, containing a Roman Road between Hamworthy (Moriconium) and Corfe Mullen (Alavna), and a pottery.

 From records of 1592, the Earl of Huntingdon owned the land, and sold Upton Farm and the Island, then known as Rookhey, to Edward Rogers, who in turn, leased them to Henry Alye and Garwan Mallett, and later to Thomas Frampton and Thomas Young. 

In 1652, Haviland Heely (later Hiley) and George Phillips, who were Poole merchants, purchased the farm and island.

Our story starts with Nicholas Carey of Fish Street, Poole and Upton Farm, and one of his descendants Mary Beale who was the first wife of William Spurrier.

When William Spurrier bought the land, farm buildings occupied a site on a prominent knoll. William had been Mayor of Poole four times between 1784 and 1802, and had always dreamt of building a mansion.

 

The Spurrier family were engaged in the Newfoundland Trade operating in the southern peninsula of the Avalon at Burin. William’s grandfather founded the business in 1672.   Pride of the Spurrier fleet was a Barquentine named “Upton” (*) built in Newfoundland in 1787, a three masted ship.

 Mary died in 1782, and William then married Ann Jolliffe, from another merchant family in Poole. Their son, Christopher Spurrier (1783 to 1876) had inherited the Upton Estate from his father and had married Amy Garland in 1814.

 To impress his father-in-law George Garland, he had the Turnpike road diverted to enlarge the parklands, and built the present structure between 1816 and 1818. In 1825 he added the west wing.

 

Christopher sought to acquire a seat in Parliament, and being a spendthrift and gambler, at the time that the Newfoundland trade declined with end of the French Wars, his hand on the business faltered. He became MP for Bridport in 1820, and had Mortgaged the Estate at Upton for £12,000 and sold his Compton Abbas Estate for £16,513.

 His marriage was under strain and he neglected both family life and business.