Duncombe Pleydell Bouverie

This is an obituary for a Market Lavington resident who died in 1850. It was published in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

 

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Lord and Lady Warrington at home

We have met Lord Warrington, earlier Sir Thomas Rolls Warrington before on this blog. Today we feature a photo which includes the noble Lord and also his wife and it is her we’ll concentrate on this time.

Lord and Lady Warrington with friends at Clyffe Hall, Market Lavington

Lord Warrington is in the wheel chair and we assume it is his wife holding his hand. We only have this caption.

Lady Warrington was considerably younger than her husband. She was born in 1864 whilst he was born in 1851. Her maiden name had been Emma Maude Sturges and she was the daughter of a barrister.

She was remembered, none too favourably, recently when we recorded an oral history with Bill, aged 100 and the son of the head gardener at the Warrington’s home in the 1920s. Bill felt the lord was a friendly and approachable person but that Lady Warrington was just a bit stand offish. One story Bill remembered concerned the gift, to the staff, one Christmas of petticoats and then holding a parade of the staff and making them show under garments to ensure they were wearing her gift.

In the photo she looks perfectly OK and doesn’t display any sign of being something of a tyrant. We have very little knowledge about Lady Warrington and it would be grand if anybody who could remember her could tell us more.

By the way, we have no idea who other people in the photo are. They could be Emma’s parents for they’d have been not that much older than Lord Warrington.

Interesting that the two women appear to be in uniform clothing. Their apparel looks remarkably similar.

Lord Warrington died in 1937 and is buried in Market Lavington church yard. His lady joined him in 1948 although her address at the time was given as Pangbourne.

 

The career of Miss Ross

Miss Ross was, for fifty years, the infant teacher at West Lavington School, but her home, for many years, was in Market Lavington for she was the daughter of a Market Lavington man. This news article was published in the Wiltshire News of 19^th February 1982 and, sadly, it was following the death of Miss Ross. Miss Ross is at the left hand end of the back row in this picture.

Miss Florence Ross(back row at the left)as a very youthful teacher at West Lavington School.

Miss Florence Ross as a very youthful teacher at West Lavington School

The story with this picture, shown in full below, tells of Miss Florence Ross, daughter of Joseph Ross who was head gardener at Clyffe Hall. When her father died, Florence lived with her mother and other family members in Market Lavington High Street.

Clyffe Hall is close to West Lavington School and Florence attended it as a pupil until the age of 14. That was in 1918. The very next term, Florence returned to the school as a teacher and she taught there until 1968.

The day after she retired she became Mrs John Parr of Swanage and Dorset became her home until after the death of Mr Parr when Florence returned to the Lavingtons. She died in 1982.

Maybe members of the Alexander family could add something to this story???

 

St Mary’s fete 2015

Just a couple of days ago St Mary’s Church held their fete in the grounds of Clyffe Hall. This may be run under the auspices of the church, but the reality is that it is a village event with many local organisations having stalls of their own. Market Lavington Museum is amongst those organisations which put on a show. Our aim is not to raise funds but rather to raise awareness and also for the exchange of information. But let’s start at the beginning by thanking Margaret from New Zealand who was in the village researching her Garratt or Garrett ancestors and who very kindly helped set up our gazebo and tables. Here we have an empty set of tables, ready to be covered in some of our photographs of the past. And here we have a shot including the hall itself, with similar assembly work going on. I think Margaret was quite blown away by the whole scenario. She said it felt as though she was taking part in an episode of Midsomer Murders. Literally hundreds of people look at the stall. The fete may only be ‘live’ between 2 and 4 pm, but other stall holders are there all morning wallowing in the past and sharing memories.   There are great moments for us – those times when an older person looks at an old school photo and calls out, ‘That’s me’. That’s a cue for a crowd to gather round as stories flood out. One such lady was paying her first visit to Market Lavington in forty years and was more delighted that these words can do justice too. More amusing is when a younger person discovers they are in a photo. You might hear a comment about being a museum artefact, sometimes ruefully from the person concerned and sometimes with great glee from their nearest and dearest. Margaret was not the only overseas visitor. In the afternoon four ladies from Waiblingen, involved in the local exchange scheme were at the fete. It seems that like Margaret, they felt they had stepped into a film set when they arrived at Clyffe Hall. So there we have Kristine, Martina, Katja and Doris at the fete. How wonderful that some memories of our village life will be taken back to other countries and continents.

Lord Warrington and Friend

Judge, Sir Thomas Rolls Warrington was the owner of Clyffe Hall in Market Lavington in the early part of the twentieth century. He was elevated to the peerage on his retirement and took the title of Lord Warrington of Clyffe. He left no heirs or successors and so he was the one and only Baron with this title.

We do not know much about what he did in Market Lavington although he was a church goer and employed local people as gardeners and around the house. We are not aware that he got involved in any really active way in village life. But he clearly had friends and this photo shows the noble lord with a young gentleman.

Sir Thomas Rolls (Lord) Warrington with young Simon Latham at Clyffe Hall – 1930s

His lordship and the lad are outside Clyffe Hall and we understand the boy is Simon Latham. Web guess the photo dates from the early 1930s. Of course, we’d like to know more about young Simon and his connection with the Warringtons.

Clyffe Hall Lake

There’s not much open water in Market Lavington. The streams are small and much of the parish is on chalkland which, of course, allows water to seep into it. There are a couple of artificial bodies of water which can just about be called lakes. One of them is in the grounds of Clyffe Hall.

Clyffe Hall Lake in about 1920

This particular photo was given recently by Ian in Australia. The photo is not perfect – the right hand side is well speckled but it shows the lake nicely, with a small boat just visible on the left. We think the photo dates from after World War One.

The lake, of course, is still there and this photo was taken during the year 2000 fete in the grounds. There were small boats on the lake and in the background is a balloon for that fete had as a guest, round the world balloonist Brian Jones.

The lake in the year 2000

Another view in 2006 shows the house in the background and a swan on the lake.

 

Lake and house in 2006

Clyffe Hall

Today you’ll have a chance to visit the gardens at Clyffe hall as the annual fete organised by St Mary’s Church takes place there. You’ll be able to indulge in all the usual fun of the fair, snap up bargains in books, plants, bric-a-brac etc. You’ll be able to enjoy refreshments that suit you and of course we’ll be there with a chance for you to see some of those wonderful ads from Harry Hobbs shop which we saw on yesterday’s blog.

But we’ll turn the clock back to about 1920 today and look at some photos probably taken by Bill Elisha.

 There’s some of the hall and lawns.

 A view over the lake.

In the gardens.

We look forward to seeing many of you there.

Clyffe Hall in 1957

This is a second photo originally purchased on 5^th August 1957. It shows Clyffe Hall which was being run as a country hotel by the Reynolds family at that time.

Clyffe Hall, Market Lavington in about 1957

The original owner has trimmed the photo (and not very neatly) but it is still a good picture of the hall in that era. We believe the photographer was Peter Francis.

Clyffe Hall was built in 1732 and in the nineteenth century it became closely associated with the manorial estate. From 1850 the Hon Louisa Hay lived there. Her head gardener, James Lye, was, perhaps, more famous than she was. He produced many new varieties of the fuchsia and if interested you can buy some of his cultivars from the James Lye National Collection whose web site is at http://www.jameslyefuchsias.co.uk/  .

The photo has some distant people sitting under trees. They are too far away to recognise, but they could be members of the Reynolds family or maybe hotel guests.

The original owner of this photo recorded that he had dinner at Clyffe Hall back on 5^th August 1957.

(If you read the comments, below, you will realise that this photograph was, no doubt accidentally, printed as a mirror image of the real orientation of the building!)

Barbara Reynolds’ Driving Licence

Remember the old red driving licence? What pleasant documents they were, in some cases with quite a lot of history in them. This one belonged to Barbara Reynolds.

This driving licence belonged to Barbara Reynolds of Market Lavington

Inside, with frequent renewals needed in the past, is a sort of history for Barbara in the form of glued in sheets of paper.

This is the first page showing Barbara at Clyffe Hall

This page, for example, tells us that Barbara lived at Clyffe Hall, Market Lavington in 1939.

And this page tells us she was still there in 1965 – you can see that there is a large collection of these stuck in pages which go back to the time before the Reynolds moved to Wiltshire.

The photo of Barbara is of stunningly good quality, being a passport sized original.

Driving licence photo of Barbara Reynolds

The blue mark is the official stamp and we can see that the photo is fastened in place with a staple.

Barbara was born Barbara Isabel Marsden in 1907 so we can find her on the 1911 census. She lived at 45 Parsonage Lane, Heaton Chapel in Cheshire. Her father was a tea agent and like his wife, was originally a Londoner.  In 1911 Barbara was the youngest of three surviving daughters. The oldest had been born in the Bristol area, before the family moved to the Stockport area.

It was in 1936 that Barbara married Stewart Reynolds. The young couple purchased Clyffe Hall in 1938 and the long association with Market Lavington began.

Barbara died in 2002.

Clyffe Hall for sale – 1938

 

 

After the death of Lord Warrington of Clyffe in 1937, his former home was offered for auction. At Market Lavington Museum we have the sale catalogue which gives an insight into the features of Clyffe Hall. There are not many words with this post so we can remind readers that you can see a larger version of the images by clicking on them.

The outer cover

The outline of the property up for auction.

The view from the lake.

 

Lot 1

 

Lot 1 continued

Lot 1 continued

 

Lot 1 continued

 

In the grounds

 Lot 1 concluded

 That’s a good description of the basic features of Clyffe Hall