Few ancient manor houses enjoy a more beautiful setting than Dunshay. Built of warm Purbeck stone, it nestles amidst woodland on the southern slope of the Purbeck valley not far from Corfe Castle, reflecting the robust self-sufficiency of the Elizabethan yeomen farmers who built it.

Ilay Cooper who was raised and educated in Purbeck tells the story of Dunshay mirroring five centuries of change on a landscape that yielded Purbeck marble for Salisbury Cathedral and other historic buildings in a recently published book Purbeck Arcadia - Dunshay Manor and the Spencer Watsons.

Those connected to Dunshay include at the end of the 12th century Alice Briwere, wife of the Norman knight Sir Roger de Pole who was the owner of 'the Manor of Worth where Dunshay Manor is found'. After he failed to return from the Crusades she became the owner of not only the manor but also of some abandoned Purbeck marbles quarries nearby that she reopened, donating material to building Salisbury Cathedral.

A century later Dunshay was bought by Thomas Hyde, a Poole merchant grown wealthy on cod and clay who became Mayor of Poole, like his father and grandfather before him. He used Dunshay as a refuge and was instrumental in setting up the first public house at Worth, today the site is known as the Square and Compass.

John Calcraft, an unscrupulous military paymaster and MP, died in mid purchase, leaving his son to become Dunshay's new owner. Their descendants retained Dunshay for over a century, leasing it to a succession of farmer tenants, one of which was Benjamin Jesty, the pioneer of the smallpox vaccination.

After the First World War naval captain Guy Marston who had links with Aleister Crowley, 'The Wickedest Man in the World' and his drug fuelled occult was compelled to sell Dunshay - due perhaps to post-war penury, gambling debts or blackmail.

The equestrian artist Lucy Kemp Welch was a paying guest at Dunshay when George and Hilda Spencer Watson bought the manor from Mr E. J. Holland in 1923.

Ten years earlier the Spencer Watsons had taken out a long lease on the Corner Cottage in Studland, spending holidays with their daughter Mary in the Purbecks before returning to London where George was a well-known portrait painter and Royal Academy exhibitor and Hilda had a Studio Theatre where she performed mimes and dances.

The Spencer Watsons transformed Dunshay into the setting for a remarkable artistic Arcadia that endured for 80 years. George's paintings and watercolours of Purbeck reflect his pleasure for family life. His greatest work 'Four Loves I found, A Woman, A Child, A Horse and A Hound' sold for £151,250 in 2009. Earlier in 1919 a painting of Hilda and Mary entitled 'The Donkey Ride' won picture of the year at the Royal Academy.

The Spencer Watsons redesigned the gardens, built studios and a small theatre where Hilda extended her mime and dance company. Mary joined her mother as a young dancer and as she matured often outshone her mother in reviews. A particular favourite with the public was mother and daughter's portrayal of 'Walk, Shepherdess, Walk'.

Mary, a day pupil at Lesson School at Langton, learned to work the stone in the quarry near Dunshay when she was 13. She learned modelling and drawing at Bournemouth School of Art, where her father advised students on drawing and painting. She studied at Slade School, making friends with Hermoine Hammond whose father ran the military explosives factory at Holton Heath, before going to the Royal Academy Sculpture School and then the Central School of Art.

Mary and Canadian-born sculptor Elizabeth Muntz of Chaldon Herring near Lulworth, were the only women to be elected to the Ancient Order of Purbeck Marblers and Stonecutters. Mary paid tribute to the quarry men of Gallows Gore Quarry with a sculpture of the 'Purbeck Quarryman' at Langton Church yard.

In 1939 Mary's 'Descending Angel' sculpture in ash wood was exhibited in the Royal Academy.

During the war Mary taught sculpture at Clayesmore and Cranborne Chase Schools, the local College of Art, and the two preparatory schools at Langton Matravers, Malthouse and Spyway.

She was then involved in works for public buildings such as a coat of arms for St Bartholomew's Hospital, angels for Guildford Cathedral, a huge relief for the new chemistry block at Cambridge University and her famous four evangelists for Wells Cathedral.

Ilay Cooper first came to Dunshay in 1960, settling there in 1988 to couple quarry work with research and writing, and got to know Mary Spencer Watson very well. He was left a life-long tenancy at Dunshay when Mary died in 2006 after she left the manor to the Landmark Trust.

Purbeck Arcadia - Dunshay Manor & the Spencer Watsons is published by Dovecote Press at £15.