There is very little in records about this house, but from the existing structure it is known that parts are Tudor and still has its minstrels gallery in the dining hall and fine oak panelling in the old hall and dining room. (Architectural History)

Records tell us that there was a member of the Wyke or Week family living in this location in the 14^th century (in the reign of Edward III), when Richard de Wyke and his wife Alice held 2 messuages (dwelling place with outbuildings and the surrounding land that is used by the dwellings occupants) and 35 acres of land in a 1329 survey.

In Elizabethan times it is recorded that Cressbyne de Wyke lived at Wyke Hall and was an official of the Manor.

The Pile (or Pyle) family owned Wyke Hall in the 1600’s. The Wyke Estate descended through at least three generations of the distinguished Pile family, who were among the families recognised by the Heralds on their Visitation of Wiltshire. The earliest member of the family known to hold the Wyke Estate was William Pile, ‘Gentleman of Weeke, Dorset’. In his Will dated 13^th March 1645/6 he bequeathed all his lands a ‘farm at Weeke’ to his cousin, Gabriell Pile. There are references to the farm and a house (farmhouse) in his Will but no mention of a mansion.

Soon after William died and the Wyke Estate passed to Gabriell Pile Esq of Week, Gillingham, who had links with the Durdow family of Milton, by marrying Mary Durdow, daughter of Christoper Durdow Esq of Milton. The Durdows were a local family who had owned the Manor of Milton for 100 years and had been in the area since the early 16^th century.

The ten year period between 1651/2 and 1662 appears to be when the mansion (Wyke Hall) was originally built. This ties in with the dates given by the Historical Monuments Commission which states that Wyke Hall has a 17^th century nucleus, but the majority is mid-19^th century and perhaps dated by a rainwater head of 1853

Gabriell Pile and Mary started work on the ‘capital messuage’ (mansion) in 1651/2 soon after the marriage settlement of 1651. Gabriell Pile died in 1653, perhaps before the mansion was complete and either then or at some time before 1662, Wyke passed to Thomas Pyle.

In 1662 the estate passed to the Freke family, descended from the wealthy Frekes of Irwin Courtney. Thomas Freke of Wyke was a direct descendant of Sir Thomas Freke, MP for Dorset born 1563, who was first son of Robert Freke, an auditor and teller of the Exchequer in the reigns of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth and who helped resolve a land dispute at Comb Mead between the Queen’s farmer and tenants and freeholder – and it appears under an order of the Court of the Exchequer. This was presumably the Queen’s Farm at Thorngrove. Another Thomas Freke was a Sheriff of Dorset and the Dorset Receiver of the 1664 Hearth Tax. There is a family connection between the Piles and Frekes. An original indenture at the Dorset History Centre dated 30^th June 1662, effectively transferred the property between the two families. The document tells us that in 1662 there was a farm and also a mansion house, with 340 acres of pasture and meadow land.

Thomas of Wyke was a keen collector of religious books. Some of the 619 books from Wyke Hall library which were bequeathed to the Vicars of Gillingham in 1735 could originally have belonged to Thomas Freke’s father, another Thomas of Hannington, Wiltshire., When Thomas Freke died in 1768 the Wyke Estate including the ‘Capital Messuage’ and farm, passed to Thomas’s nephew, Rev. John Freke of Hannington Wilts.

John Farquer of Fonthill purchased the house from the Freke family in the early 19^thc. and from Farquer it passed to James Mortimer. They are perpetuated by two heraldic shields in one of the fine plaster ceilings in one of the large rooms. Mortimer’s widow then remarried to a Whieldon. They lived here for some years and are remembered by one of the stained glass windows in St. Mary’s chancel. After came the James who built the South Lodge in c.1850. Several more families lived here including the Cross’s who gifted the Lady Chapel in St. Mary’s. The house has now been converted into flats.

Some think that in pre-Reformation times it was a monastery. The lake, much larger then, was the monk’s fishpond. At one time when you entered some of the ground floor rooms there was a sweet smell and one explanation was that this area was used as a chapel and that the smell of the incense had impregnated the walls.

The Freke Library and Wyke Hall by Tony Thrasher. History of the Town of Gillingham, Eileen E. Shaw Gylla’s Hometown by Charles Howe