MEM23515 - Withycombe Farm, Culbone (Monument)

The farmstead is shown on the Tithe Map for Culbone. It was apparently demolished in the mid 19th Century. It has been suggested that this is the location at which Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan and Osorio in 1797.

The Tithe Map for Culbone shows a single building sited at c. SS 8364 4793, within a small land parcel adjacent to Withy Combe stream. The parcel is labelled 82 and the accompanying Tithe Apportionment states that this is the House and Garden of Withycombe Farm, owned by the Earl of Lovelace and occupied by Francis and William Pearce. The farmstead also included three other land parcels; 83 (Mead), 84 (Lower Grounds) and 81 (Higher Grounds). [1] Coleridge stated in later life that in 1797 he retreated to a farmhouse called 'Brimstone' (thought to be a Coleridgean attempt at Broomstreet, which stood two miles west of the combe) but his more contemporary recollection was that the farmhouse was 0.25 miles from Culbone Church. This has been thought to suggest Ash Farm but is perhaps more likely to mean Withycombe Farm. This was demolished in the mid 19th Century and stood one third of a mile from Culbone Church, at the head of the wooded Withy Combe. At Coleridge's time a substantial track led from here to the church and a noisy brook flowed past the farmhouse down to the sea. His works at this time included Osorio and Kubla Khan. The latter was inspired by taking opium but, during writing the poem, he was interrupted by a person from Porlock who detained him for more than an hour, after which he was unable to continue. [2]