Woman originally housed in compound (6)
I believe the answer is:
esther
'woman' is the definition.
'originally housed in compound' is the wordplay.
'originally' says to take the initial letters.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'compound' becomes 'ester' (ester is a kind of compound**).
The first letter of 'housed' is 'h'.
'h' placed inside 'ester' is 'ESTHER'.
(Other definitions for esther that I've seen before include "Fem. name, threes (anag.)" , "OT heroine" , "OT Queen of Persia" , "There's a biblical girl" , "Biblical heroine who became queen of Persia" .)