The red-brick Manor House Inn seen across Wraxall Road, with a white bench and tables on the lawn.

Ditcheat Somerset

The Manor
House Inn, Ditcheat

An independent guide to the inn and its village.

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Wraxall Road, DitcheatArchive photograph · June 2021

South West England

An introduction

On Wraxall Road in Ditcheat, the Manor House Inn stands within sight of the parish church. Its pointed windows look across a low garden wall towards the village street. Generations of visitors have come here for a drink, a meal or a bed for the night.

For reservations and today’s menus, visit the inn’s official website .

The visitor guide

Explore the inn & beyond

The brick frontage of the inn beside the tower of St Mary Magdalene’s Church, viewed from the road.

Heritage

The history of the inn

The parish church seen from the south-east, with its square central tower and gravestones in the foreground.

Village life

Discover Ditcheat

A path through green fields on the southern slopes of Ditcheat Hill under broken cloud.

Further afield

Explore Somerset

An inn in the heart of Ditcheat

The postal address puts the Manor House Inn in Shepton Mallet. A traveller looking for the door, though, needs the village of Ditcheat. The distinction matters in this part of Somerset, where a short distance on a map can take you from a town centre into lanes between farms. Look for Wraxall Road and the brick frontage with the shallow bay window. The tower behind the inn in photographs belongs to St Mary Magdalene’s, the parish church.

The guide starts at that corner of the village. Here you can put a name to a detail in a photograph, find an account of an earlier visit or make arrangements to see the place for yourself. This website is independently published. Chickpea Group operates the inn and handles the day-to-day questions about a stay. The official inn website is the place to check what is on and make a reservation.

What the old frontage can tell you

Look at the windows either side of the front. In one part, small panes of glass fit beneath pointed arches. In another, upright lengths of stone separate the window lights. The entrances follow the same pattern. One has a pointed head, while the other sits under a projecting stone hood. Details that seem incidental at first make it possible to recognise the building even when the pub sign is just a blur in an old photograph.

Historic England records the inn as Grade II listed. Its account dates the earlier part of the listed building to the late eighteenth century and identifies a mid-nineteenth-century addition. The operator and the agent who handled the 2024 sale describe an inn with roots in the 1600s. These accounts tell us different things about the place. One describes the history associated with the inn, while the other dates the visible building fabric. The history of the Manor House Inn brings the evidence together, and the photograph archive lets you compare the view from several angles.

The name behind the sign

For an earlier name, local histories point to the White Hart. A hart is a male deer, a familiar subject on English pub signs. CAMRA’s Bath and Borders branch records the spelling “White Heart” and associates the inn with Edmund Dawe, lord of the manor. The same account says that the Manor House Inn name was in use by 1861. That is a useful point against which to read a family paper or an old caption. It gives a latest date for the newer name without pinning the change itself to a particular year.

There is another reason to take care with names in Ditcheat. Historic England has a separate entry for Ditcheat House, also known as Ditcheat Manor. Anyone looking up a building, an old photograph or a family address can start with the pub’s own list entry, numbered 1217347. Our White Hart guide follows the former name and explains how to distinguish the two properties.

At the table and in the bar

A May 2008 travel feature in the Guardian gives a glimpse of the inn during an earlier period of trading. Its writer found a bar serving real ale and a kitchen interested in Somerset produce. The feature also published this domain alongside the inn’s details. If you arrived through that article, this independent guide concerns the same inn; it does not continue the former website or handle the business’s reservations. Some things you read about there, especially the serving times, prices and dishes, belong to the visit recorded in 2008.

Today the inn has a pub dining room and a separate Nole pizza operation. The move that made room for the pizza kitchen was an inventive one. Space once set aside for the pub’s skittle alley became part of the route through to the terrace. A party hoping to share pizzas and a couple looking for Sunday lunch can use the food and drink guide to find the right menu. For allergens or a particular dietary requirement, take the name of the dish to the inn’s team when you book.

Where guests have stayed

The same 2008 visitor found three guest rooms in a converted mews behind the inn. In a building that has changed in stages, the location of a bedroom tells you something that a room count alone can miss. Some visitors encountered the courtyard on their way to bed, while the main pub remained a distinct part of the evening. The later refurbishment brought the accommodation to nine en-suite rooms, with four above the pub and five in the courtyard.

If you are choosing a room, first decide which part of the property suits your stay. A photograph of a particular bath or window may belong to just one bedroom. Ask about the route between the entrance, your room and the breakfast table if steps or distance are important to you. Our rooms guide links to the operator’s room descriptions and booking service, where you can see the options for your own dates.

From closure to reopening

The Manor House Inn closed in November 2023. In 2024 the property adviser Christie & Co announced its sale to Chickpea Group. The refurbishment included the bar, guest accommodation and garden areas. CAMRA records that the inn reopened on 1 February 2025. Outside, the red brick and pointed windows still give the building its familiar face. Inside, the change from skittles to a pizza kitchen marks a new use for an old pub space.

The sequence is particularly easy to follow through dated evidence. A view taken by Ian Capper in August 2023 shows the inn shortly before its closure. The sale announcement describes the position of a closed business in 2024. Reports from the following winter describe preparations for opening. A visitor today can read those three records without assuming that a feature, layout or service from one year necessarily applies to another. The restoration and reopening guide follows that change in more detail.

Beyond the garden wall

Start nearby if you have a little time before a meal. Spot the tower of St Mary Magdalene’s from the street and compare it with the gallery view from the churchyard. The church has a history of its own. Its Grade I listing records medieval work and nineteenth-century restoration. Both buildings can be seen in one photograph, but looking up their separate records reveals how differently their fabric developed.

Ditcheat is also known for cheese making and horse racing. Those activities help explain a working village where a quiet-looking lane may have agricultural traffic or horses on it. Follow signed public routes and give people working with animals plenty of space. For a longer outing, use the village guide and things to do nearby to put a visit to Bruton or the surrounding countryside alongside your stop at the inn. The Somerset country inns guide looks at other buildings whose history can be read from the street.

Before you set out

Use Wraxall Road, Ditcheat, Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 6RB as your destination. Castle Cary station is close to the village on a map, but the straight-line distance tells you little about the final part of your journey. If you are arriving by rail, arrange the connection before you leave, especially if a meal booking or an evening return train fixes the time you need to be there. The visiting guide includes a location map, directions and ways to contact the inn about access or arrival.

To explore from home, try the articles or bring up two views in the photographic archive and follow the line of the garden wall between them. The sources page identifies the public records, contemporary reports and official information behind the guide.

Sources & further reading 6