Canford

 The Canford Manor house

CANFORD VILLAGE

Ivor Bertie Guest, 1st LORD WIMBORNE baron wimborne (1835 – 1914)

(Ivor Bertie Guest) first Baron, was born on August 29, 1835, and succeeded as second baronet 1852.

He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College Cambridge. The death of his father in, in 1852, put him in possession of a great income, increased by the judicious extension of the celebrated Dowlais Iron works, the largest, as they were the first to be established in South Wales, so that they now extend to the boundaries of Cardiff itself. Under the superintendence and direction of the principal trustee, Mr. G.T. Clark FSA, they are famed throughout the world.

In 1868 Lord Wimborne, then Sir Ivor Guest, married Lady Cornelia Churchill, daughter of the sixth Duke of Marlborough and sister of Lord Randolph Churchill.

He was raised to the peerage in 1880, having although the scion of a Whig family, contested several constituencies in the Conservative interest. His eldest son came of age in 1894, and his eldest daughter is married to Lord Rodney. His brothers have made their mark in various directions, Mr. Montagu Guest being one of the best known men of the day. Of his sisters, one married Sir Henry Layard, the distinguished politician, traveller, and diplomatist; another married Mr. Frederick Alderson, brother of Lady Salisbury; and a third is the wife of Mr. E. Ponsonby, secretary to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

His residence at Canford has been visited by members of the Royal Family, and especially so by Prince and Princess Christian and by the Duke and Duchess of Teck; in 1887 the Prince of Wales paid it a visit.

Hamilton house, now Wimborne House, in Arlington Street is Lord Wimborne’s town residence; and he owns what is, perhaps, the finest deer forest in Scotland, at Auchnashellach, in Ross-shire,. Many trophies of deerstalking ornament his town and country houses. Lord Wimborne has no hesitation in declaring that he inherited his passion for “collecting” from his mother, Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Her collection of British pottery, probably the finest in existence, she munificently presented to the nation, while the whole of her Oriental china has found a resting place at Canford, where it stands in a series of many cabinets, in the long corridor.

Taken from PRATT A.T.C. People of the period 2v 1

Canford Village

Lady Wimborne

Charlotte's wedding had shocked the nobility and gentry. She had married "into trade," as it was quaintly expressed in those days, and the couple was ostracized by society. But soon the whole of England was riding on Guest's rails and he, in turn, rode those trakcs to enormous wealth and respectability. By 1838 the aristocracy had come to terms with England's emergent new class; trades people had become "captains of industry," and Guest was created a baronet.

Charlotte was as remarkable an individual as her husband. She was not only vivatious, attractive, and independent-minded, but also talented. Chaucer was her favorite author, with Virgil and Byron close seconds. She read the classics in Greek and Latin, and was familiar with Persian and Hebrew.

After her marriage to John Guest, she took up Welsh and translated into English MABINOGION, a project that took eight years and required her to master the early medieval text in which the Welsh tales were composed. Her translation of MABINGION was published in three volumes in 1846, two years before Layard arrived on the scene at Canford, and it was these tales that inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson to write THE IDYLLS OF THE KING.

Charlotte Guest was a remarkable woman in other ways. In fifteen years of marriage, she bore ten children, five boys and five girls. A portrait of her in this period by Watts, the same artist who sketched Layard's picture, shows a singularly youthful face.

As a wedding present for his young bride, Guest had acquired and rebuilt Canford Manor, a medieval ruin fit for archaeological research. In the ensuing years the manor was reborn on a grand scale in the popular neo-Gothic style of the Victorian period, complete with its own cricket field."

"Among the children, one in particular took a special fancy to "Uncle Henry," five-year-old

Mary Enid Evelyn, whom he bounced on his knee and who bore a striking resemblance to her mother. Enid, as she was called, fel madly in love with her mother's Ninevite."

"John Guest was bedridden at the time, and Layard spent Christmas week that year at Canford. Lord Bessborough, a relative of Charlotte's and the editor of her diaries, said "He made himself responsible for entertaining the ten children, so leaving Lady Charlotte to look after her husband.

When Sir John died the following year at the age of sixty-seven, Charlotte went into mourning for six months, and on her first ventrue in public, she joined Layard at Covent Garden to hear FIDELIO."I felt some scruples on the matter of this first going out again," she wrote in her diary, "but I muffled up going and coming, and sat at the back of the box, and so escaped notice." The gossips were having a field day, however, and Layard's name became linked romantically with his cousin's."

"For Layard, the year 1869 was a watershed. Not only did he give up his desire to "push his way" through politics, but he also abandoned his bachelorhood.

For years there had been gossip about Layard's incessant visits to Canford Manor. Lady

Charlotte, of course, was the focus of the petty talk. But within two years of Sir John Guest's death, she silenced that gossip and provided rumormongers with another field day - by marrying her son's tutor!

At the time of her husband's death, Charlotte had engaged one Charles Schreiber, at a salary of 400 pounds a year, to coach her sixteen-year-old son Merthyr. Schreiber was eleven years Merthyr's senior and fourteen years Charlotte's junior. On April 10, 1855, she married him. Schreiber's mother was ambivalent about the wedding. "This is nothing to be ashamed of, though there may be much to be said for and against, on both sides...," she had written the coule when they revealed their plans to her the previous November.

Layard had no such ambivalence. He strongly disapproved of her action, and relations between Layard and Charlotte cooled appreciably. Charlotte felt hurt. There were stories unsubstantiated, that he had hoped to marry her.

Apparently Charlotte's ten children also took a dim view of their mother's remarriage, and life at Canford Manor lost much of its festive air and attractiveness for the Guest children, just as it had for Layard.

In 1857, in an August 1 diary entry, Charlotte again expressed dismay over Layard's behavior. "He cannot forgive my marriage," she wrote.

But not longer after, Layard appeared to have undergone a change of heart. Within two years he was visiting Canford Manor frequently as in the past. Victorian tongues wagged the more - but inconclusively. Now what was the object of Layard's incessant trips to Canford?

....Then, in early January 1869, Layard titillated London society. He proposed - to Enid, Lady Charlotte's daughter, the tyke he had bounced uon his knee when he first returned from Assyria. Tiny Enid had ripened into a tall, slender, and lovely young woman of twenty-five. She possessed classic features, aquiline nose, blue eyes, and honey - colored tresses that fell to her shoulders. Mr Bull [Layard's nickname] had always been the love in her life, first paternally (her father died when she was eight), and, after adolescence, in a surprisingly and completely different way. Whether or not she was waiting for him and whether or not he was waiting for her is not known and will never be known. Layard and Enid were private about their most intimate relationship.

Whatever the case, Enid did not hesitate a moment. She readily accepted Layard's proposal. As an engagement present, he snapped around her thin left wrist - it was slender enough for him to encircle it with his thumb and index finger - andexquisite bracelet fashioned from Esarhaddon's seal.

The reaction of the prospective in-laws were mixed. Now it was Lady Charlotte's turn to be discomfitted. Her daughter's decision took her by surprise, and it took a couple of months to turn her around. Layard's mother, who had never remarried and was now sixty-six (she died in 1879 at the age of eighty-nine),also harbored reservations. "I hope that she [Enid] will never regret the change," Marianne Layard wrote Charlotte.

Many of the couple's friends entertained similar misgivings. Not only was Enid twenty-seven years younger than Layard, but she had led a relatively sheltered, almost cloistered existence at Canford.

By contrast, Layard was worldly, roisterous, restless, and explosively aggressive.

Marriage bonds were posted March 3 and the wedding took place swiftly, six days later. As a wedding gift, Layard presented his "darling Enid," as he fondly called her, a unique piece of jewelry, a necklace fashioned from several cuneiform cylinders."

The marriage actually worked well, and the Layards were still together when Sir Austen died in 1894. However, they had no children.

Canford Village

WINSTONS CHURCHILLS ANCESTRAL LINK WITH DORSET

The First Churchills of Round Chimneys

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Whenever the name Churchill is mentioned people naturally think of Sir Winston of the Second World War, twice Prime Minister, and associate his family with Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. After all, this was the seat of the Churchills as the Dukes of Marlborough in the 18th century. And, true enough, it was here in 1874 that the soldier statesman Sir Winston of the 20th century was born.

Less well known (if at all) is the perhaps not-so-surprising fact that the great man’s earliest documented ancestor was another Sir Winston, though one who never lived outside of the 17th century.

But this earlier Winston Churchill was no Oxfordian; nor was he a Londoner or a native of the home counties. In fact he was of true Dorset origin, first seeing the light of day in a remote farmhouse situated in the mid north-west parish of Glanvilles Wootton, called Round Chimneys. The three evenly spaced small chimneys which give the farm its name appear in an relatively early photograph, along the apex of a roof sloping much further down at the rear than at the front, but the house also has an economy of windows and smooth-rendered walls giving it the appearance of an American-style farmhouse that would not look out of place in the Allegheny foothills of Pennsylvania.

In 1620 however, when the earlier Winston Churchill was born here, the farmhouse would likely have looked quite different. Although there appear to be no records of who his parents were, they evidently brought young Winston up in the Royalist tradition of a Cavalier. He became a Member of Parliament as well as holding a position in the Royal household known as the Board of Green Cloth. As a Royalist he fought on the side of Charles 1 in the Civil War, but following the defeat of Charles he had to forfeit his estates. As a member of the Board of Green Cloth Churchill may have had a hand in formulating resolutions such as the one passed in June 1681 that cherry tarts should be issued to the Maids of Honour instead of gooseberry tarts, as cherries were cheaper. Later he also joined the only recently formed Royal Society.

It was noted that Winston was a surprisingly superstitious man. Harking on the fact that he happened to be born and baptised on a Friday, he went through life believing it to be his lucky day. So much so evidently, that he saw to it that he married and was even knighted on Friday too, though it is not recorded whether, as he believed he would, he died on that day.

As a loyal and respected member of the Royal household Churchill received a knighthood at some time, either from Charles 1 or 11. In 1648 his daughter Arabella was born, followed in 1650 by the arrival of a son, John, then another son, Charles, after John. It was John Churchill who grew up to be the first Duke of Marlborough and who somewhat eclipsed the obscure and lesser-known standing of his father. But like Winston, John Churchill (or “Corporal John” as he came

to be known) became a Royalist soldier whose advancement was spurred on by his sister Arabella when she became mistress to the Duke of York, later James 11.

When the first Winston did die in 1688 at the age of 68, it was not before he had left a written legacy in the form of a history of the English kings titled Divi Britannici.

John Churchill, who as we have seen was also born at Round Chimneys, was brought up as an Anglican and educated at St Paul’s School in London, where the masters failed to inspire him with any tastes in literature, though he was handsome, with attractive manners. In 1678 he married Sarah Jennings, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne, and was raised to the peerage in 1682. He once saved the life of the Duke of Monmouth at Maastricht, though this would later prove to have been a futile and undeserved intervention. For by 1685 Churchill was second in commandof the King’s troops dispatched to suppress Monmouth’s western rebellion, and so was largely responsible for the Duke’s capture and execution. It was as if Churchill had saved a life only to take it later.

Before becoming the founder of the Marlboroughs John Churchill became 1st Baron of Sandridge. Under this title and at the head of 5000 men he defected to William, Prince of Orange in 1688, once James 11’s Catholicism had become notorious and at odds with Churchill’s Anglicanism. After campaigning in the Netherlands and Ireland, in 1701 Churchill was made 1st Duke of Marlborough by Queen Anne and sent by her as Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-Dutch alliance to fight in the War of Spanish Succession, which brought Gibraltar under British colonial dependency.

Between 1702 and 1711 Churchill was primarily engaged in fighting the French, where his fame reached a climax in the campaign of Ramillies. He drove the French from occupation of Spanish Gelderland, but Churchill’s crowning glory came when he fought and won the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.

The outcome of these campaigns made this Dorset soldier-farmer’s son largely responsible for altering the course of European history by thwarting France’s attempts to join forces with the Bavarians. For these actions a grateful King and country rewarded John Churchill with the gift of the estate of Woodstock Manor in Oxfordshire. Here Churchill built the great palace that upon its consecration has honoured and perpetuated the place name of his crowning military triumph in its own.

Of the Duke, it was said that he never lost a battle or failed a siege. His domestic life however, somewhat tainted the success of his military career. He had to suffer intrigues perpetrated by his wealthy wife who was keeper of the Privy Purse for Queen Anne, as well as becoming her confidant. In 1711 his standing with the Whigs, upon whom he depended, was fatally undermined when, making an ill-judged demand that he should hold a Captain-Generalship for life, he gave his enemies a chance to topple him. Churchill was recalled and politically savaged in Parliament.

Rather than have to face the hostility of his compatriots, the Duke made a quiet retirement abroad. He was made Captain-General by George 1, though he was never considered trustworthy again, and after some years in declining health he died from a stroke in 1722.

Churchill’s eldest daughter was Lady Anne, who married Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland in 1700. Their son, also called Charles, became the 3rd Duke of Marlborough and 5th Earl of Sunderland upon the death of Lady Anne’s sister, who was Duchess of Marlborough in her own right after Anne and Charles had pre-deceased her.

So Round Chimneys Farm played a direct role as the setting for the roots of two of the country’s leading aristocratic families. However, the farm is not the only Dorset connection with the Churchill’s. Canford House, for instance, was once the home of Lady Wimborne, wife of Ivor Guest but formerly Cornelia Spencer Churchill, sister of the high Tory statesman Lord Randolph Churchill. By his American wife Jennie Jerome, Randolph was the father of the latter Sir Winston, who was therefore Cornelia Wimborne’s nephew. Furthermore, Sir Winston’s own son Randolph married Pamela Digby, heiress of the Digby’s of Minterne House.

The wheel comes full circle when we learn that after the Reformation Winchester College granted Minterne House, originally the Manor of Cerne Abbey, to none other than the first Sir Winston Churchill. He in turn left it to his younger son, General Charles Churchill, who also owned a town house in Dorchester which later burnt down in a fire in which his widow perished

                   Canford Parish Church 

 Lady Wimbornes Cottages

Graves of The Guest family