(470) Bazley of Hatherop Castle, baronets

Bazley of Hatherop Castle 

This family owes its rise to wealth and a baronetcy to the cotton industry in and around Manchester in the early 19th century. Thomas Bazley (1773-1845), with whom the genealogy below begins, was a cotton manufacturer and merchant at Bolton. His five sons all followed him into different branches of the cotton trade, but it was his eldest son, later Sir Thomas Bazley (1797-1885), 1st bt., who was the most successful. He formed a partnership with Robert Gardner in 1826 which operated the New Bridge Mills, Manchester and Dean Mills, Bolton. Gardner retired from the partnership in 1847 and Bazley continued alone, building the firm up to be the largest fine spinning concern in the city by 1861.

New Bridge Mills, Manchester in the 1850s. Image: Salford Art Gallery

Both partners were Liberals with a strong concern for the welfare of their workforce, and at Dean Mills they created an influential model community which was widely visited in the mid 19th century, attracting the attention of Prince Albert and Benjamin Disraeli among others. Bazley's political activism led him to be a significant figure in the Anti-Corn Law movement in the 1840s and in the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. In 1858 he became one of the MPs for Manchester, and soon afterwards he decided to retire from business and concentrate on his political objectives, which included the introduction of a nationwide system of non-sectarian education, achieved in 1870. He was made a baronet on the nomination of Gladstone in 1869. Sir Thomas invested the capital realised from the sale of his business in the purchase of landed estates in Gloucestershire, where he bought and rebuilt Eyford Park near Stow-on-the-Wold for his own use and acquired the significantly larger Hatherop Castle near Fairford for his only son.

Eyford Park: the house built for Sir Thomas Bazley c.1870.

Hatherop was to remain the property of his descendants for the next century, but Eyford was sold after his death in 1885 and again rebuilt in the early 20th century. Since the estate belonged to the Bazley family for such a short period, an account of it is reserved for a future post on the Cheetham family.

Sir Thomas was succeeded in the baronetcy by his only son, Sir Thomas Sebastian Bazley (1829-1919), 2nd bt., who was educated at Cambridge but then entered his father's business. He married the daughter of his father's former partner in 1855 and lived for more than a decade at Agden Hall, Lymm (Ches.), which he apparently rented, although he invested quite heavily in remodelling the house and laying out the grounds to the designs of Edward Kemp. When his father sold the family business, he did not stay on to work under the new owners but retired to the life of a country gentleman at the house his father bought for him, Hatherop Castle. Here he was able to pursue his interest in mathematics and astronomy, and to practice ornamental wood-turning, about which he wrote two books in the 1870s. His wife, who had borne him one son and five daughters, died in 1890, and in 1899, when death duties were first raised to a significant level, he decided to hand over the estate to his son during his lifetime: if he made the gift more than seven years before his death, no duty would be payable. Although this early example of tax avoidance was successful in the sense that he survived the seven year gift period, his son, Gardner Sebastian Bazley (1863-1911) predeceased him, so that in effect the capital event was simply brought forward!

G.S. Bazley's heir was his son, Sir Thomas Stafford Bazley (1907-97), 3rd bt., who came of age in 1928 and lived at Hatherop until the house was requisitioned for military use in 1941. He was married in 1945 but the prospects of returning to live at Hatherop Castle in the pre-war manner must have seemed remote, and in 1946 he leased the house for use as a girls' secondary school and went to live at Eastleach Downs Farm on the estate, where he became a pioneer of organic farming. He sold the freehold of Hatherop Castle to the school in 1972, but retained the rest of the estate intact, maintaining a close control over the villages of Hatherop and Eastleach, so as to preserve the rural way of life and community spirit, until he died in 1997. His children, wishing to honour his lifelong commitment to the integrity of the estate but needing to realise its capital value, sold it in 2002 to the locally-based Ernest Cook Trust, which already owned the adjacent Fairford Park estate.

Hatherop Castle, Gloucestershire

The manor of Hatherop, which belonged to Lacock Abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, was sold by the Crown to Sir William Sharington, and then passed to the Earl of Pembroke before being bought in 1553 by the tenant of fifteen years’ standing, John Blomer. Rudge’s statement that John Blomer built a new house ‘early in the reign of Elizabeth’ is untenable, since Blomer died in 1558, the year of Elizabeth’s accession, but the style of the house depicted in Kip’s view of c.1710 suggests it may well have been John’s son, William Blomer (d. 1613), who built it – perhaps not long after he inherited.

Hatherop Castle: detail of the Kip print showing the medieval and 16th century house.

Kip’s view shows the 16th century house had a main front facing north with a projecting porch-tower in the centre. To the right of this lay the hall and parlour, each with bay windows, while to the left lay an irregularly fenestrated service block of two storeys with three gabled dormers. This range was lower than the rest of the house and probably earlier in origin, as was the low square tower behind the hall/parlour range, the crenellated top of which appeared above the hall block and also above the west front of four gables. In 1672 the house was taxed on 25 hearths, making it one of the larger gentry houses in the county at that time.

Hatherop Castle: a pencil drawing of the garden front in 1829, showing clearly the old tower which was embedded in the later house.
Image: Gloucestershire Archives D3849

Hatherop remained in the Blomer family until 1686, when William Blomer died and the estate devolved upon his sister, the wife of Sir John Webb of Great Canford in Dorset. The Webbs regarded Canford as their main seat, although some later members of the family lived at Hatherop. The family were staunch Roman Catholics, as the Blomers before them had been, and maintained a priest at Hatherop who ministered to a sizeable local congregation.

In the 1770s Samuel Rudder recorded that a later Sir John Webb ‘had a noble house’ at Hatherop, ‘but not making it his constant residence, ‘tis too much neglected and the offices and gardens are falling to ruin’. By the time Rudder’s account was published in 1779, it was already out of date, for in 1778 Webb had agreed with Samuel Blackwell of Williamstrip Park that ‘whereas the grounds of their two houses adjoin, and whereas plans for improvements have from time to time been proposed by each to the other, and whereas the improvements have in part taken place, but some, including [pulling down Hatherop Mill], making a new lake and new plantations, had not been carried out’, they should execute a scheme drawn out by Richard Woods, one of the earliest rivals of Capability Brown, who developed a large practice in southern England from the 1750s onwards, working very largely for Catholic clients. The plan, which does not survive, appears to have been at least partially carried into effect, for landscaping is evident in early 19th century views of both estates and in the park at Williamstrip today.

Hatherop Castle: the entrance front of the house in 1985. Image: Nicholas Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

At his death in 1797, Sir John Webb left his estates at Canford and Hatherop to his granddaughter, Lady Barbara Ashley Cooper (1788-1844). In 1814, she married William Ponsonby, who was created 1st Baron de Mauley in 1838. He rebuilt Canford Manor to the designs of Edward Blore in 1826-36, but two years after his wife died in 1844 he sold the Canford estate to Sir John Guest, the Merthyr Tydfil ironmaster. Rebuilding at Hatherop began in 1848, and may have been prompted by a serious fire in 1844, although according to a family history, the Ponsonbys simply found the house “unpleasant to live in”, and decided to pull most of it down and rebuilt it on a larger scale. By the time Lord de Mauley died in 1855, work was nearing completion to the designs of Henry Clutton, a young architect who had trained in Edward Blore’s office. Hatherop was a rewarding commission for Clutton, taking eight years to complete and costing just over £20,000, but his work was pedestrian and uninventive. Very little of the main part of the old house was retained, beyond the idea (not the actual masonry) of the original tower behind the north and west ranges, rebuilt to somewhat slimmer proportions and a storey higher. This originally had a crenellated parapet which was removed by 1975. The original fabric of the exterior of the eastern service wing was retained, although internally, it was entirely rebuilt. Generally, the proportions of architectural features on the north entrance front were retained, especially the three-storey porch, but otherwise the rebuilding was to an entirely new design.

Hatherop Castle: garden front from the sale particulars of 1867. Image: Gloucestershire Archives RR155.2

Externally, the most successful elevation was the relatively well-articulated south front, where the tower and the medieval-style octagonal kitchen (modelled on the abbot's kitchen at Glastonbury) both added variety to the composition. The enlarged plan provided the sequence of reception rooms considered necessary for a Victorian nobleman: the porch on the north front led directly into a double-height hall (a feature the previous house probably never possessed), which was given a Jacobethan ceiling and chimney-piece. The staircase lay west of the hall, the billiard room to the east, while along the south front were dining and drawing rooms and a garden entrance hall. The west front was occupied entirely by a long library and ante-room. All these rooms had heavy and elaborate decoration, and were permeated by an almost stygian gloom, since the fenestration was inadequate, the rooms deep and the decoration dark. The service accommodation was also greatly enlarged, and arranged around a courtyard.

Hatherop church. Image: Historic England.

Hatherop church, which adjoins the house and dates from 1854-55, is also a product of the collaboration between de Mauley and Clutton. It replaced a late medieval church, and is architecturally much more successful than the house. Clutton, who was at that time in partnership with William Burges, seems to have asked Burges to design the mortuary chapel. It is profoundly influenced in its design and detailing by the contemporary publication, the Dictionnaire Raisonné de L’Architecture Française du XIe au XVIe Siècle, by Viollet-le-Duc.  Burges was probably also responsible for the carved animals on the hoodmould stops over the carriageway arch at the east end of the house.

Hatherop Castle: the garden front c.1890, when it was owned by Sir T.S. Bazley. Image: Oxford City Libraries.

The house had hardly been completed before Charles Ponsonby, 2nd Baron de Mauley, sold it to his brother, Ashley Ponsonby MP, who in turn sold it in 1862 to the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh of Lahore. The maharajah lived here for five years while Elveden Hall in Suffolk was being turned into an Indian extravaganza for him by John Norton. When he sold it in 1867, the Prince of Wales considered the purchase of Hatherop as a country seat, but finally settled on Sandringham, apparently because of the better shooting, and Hatherop was sold to Sir Thomas Bazley, 1st bt., a Lancashire cotton magnate. for the use of his son, Thomas Sebastian Bazley. A summer house was added to the north-west corner of the forecourt in 1885 to celebrate T.S.  Bazley’s inheritance of the family baronetcy, and in 1900 the estate was handed on to the next generation. Gardner Sebastian Bazley (1863-1911) employed Walter Cave to create an Italian garden, but unfortunately he died in 1911, leaving as heir a child of four, who eventually succeeded his grandfather as Sir Thomas Stafford Bazley, 3rd bt., in 1919. A large and unexpectedly successful mural on the main staircase was painted in 1936-7 by the Danish artist Karin Leyden for the third baronet.

In 1941, Hatherop Castle was requisitioned by the Government and used as a training school for the Danish resistance. In 1946 Hatherop Castle became a girls’ boarding school, the building being at first leased from Sir Thomas Bazley, and the freehold being bought in 1972. By 1992 changes in the market for boarding education led the school to close and reopen as a nursery and preparatory school, a purpose which it continues to fulfil today.

Descent: Crown granted 1548 to Sir William Sharington (c.1495-1553), kt.; sold 1552 to William Herbert (d. 1570), 1st Earl of Pembroke; sold 1553 to John Blomer (d. 1558), tenant since 1538; to son, William Blomer (d. 1613); to son, Sir Henry Blomer (d. 1624); to brother, John Blomer (d. 1638); to widow, Frances Blomer (d. 1657); to son, John Blomer (d. 1685); to brother, William Blomer (d. 1686); to sister Mary (d. 1709), wife of Sir John Webb (d. 1700), 2nd bt.; to son, Sir John Webb (d. 1745), 3rd bt.; to son, Sir Thomas Webb (d. 1763), 4th bt.; to son, Sir John Webb (d. 1797), 5th bt.; to granddaughter, Lady Barbara Ashley Cooper (1788-1844), wife of William Francis Spencer Ponsonby (d. 1855), 1st Baron de Mauley; to son, Charles Frederick Ashley Cooper Ponsonby (1815-96), 2nd Baron de Mauley; sold to brother, Hon. Ashley George John Ponsonby MP (d. 1898); sold 1862 to Maharajah Duleep Singh of Lahore; sold 1867 to Sir Thomas Bazley (1797-1885), 1st bt.; to son, Sir Thomas Sebastian Bazley (1829-1919), 2nd bt.; given 1899 to son, Gardner Sebastian Bazley (1863-1911); to son, Sir Thomas Stafford Bazley (1907-97), 3rd bt., who leased it as a school from 1946 and sold the freehold to Hatherop Castle School, 1972.

Bazley family of Hatherop Castle, baronets

Bazley, Thomas (1773-1845). Son of John Bazley (1735-1815) of Warrington (Lancs) and his wife Elizabeth, born 15 January 1773. He was a merchant and cotton manufacturer, with mathematical and literary interests. He married, 10 July 1796 at Deane by Bolton (Lancs), Anne (k/a Nancy) (1770-1834), daughter of Charles Hilton of Horwich (Lancs), and had issue:

(1) Sir Thomas Bazley (1797-1885), 1st bt. (q.v.);

(2) John Hilton Bazley (1799-1860), baptised at Deane near Bolton (Lancs), 31 March 1799; merchant and warehouseman (bankrupt 1842); later emigrated to Philadelphia (USA); married, 2 July 1831 at Mottram-in-Longdendale (Ches.), Harriet Turner (d. 1853); buried at Philadelphia, 21 July 1860;

(3) Anne Bazley (1805-41), baptised at Bolton (Lancs), 21 April 1805; married, 5 February 1834 at St John, Deansgate, Manchester, Albert Hall (d. 1885), and had issue three sons and two daughters; buried at Stalybridge (Ches.), 17 April 1841;

(4) Martha Bazley (1809-89), baptised at Bolton, 25 June 1809; married, 1 May 1833 at St John, Deansgate, Manchester, George Bindloss (1806-56), and had issue one son and six daughters; buried at Harpurhey (Lancs), 5 July 1889;

(5) Robert Bazley (1811-45), baptised at Bolton, 11 August 1811; merchant in Manchester in partnership with his brother Henry; married, 2 October 1837 at St John, Deansgate, Manchester, Lucy (1816-88), daughter of John Kenworthy, carrier, and had issue two sons and three daughters; buried at St John, Deansgate, 6 September 1845; will proved in the PCY, January 1846 (effects under £14,000);

(6) Henry Bazley (1813-65), baptised at Bolton, 9 September 1813; cotton spinner and manufacturer in partnership with his brother Robert; married 1st, 16 August 1843 at Enschede (Netherlands), Justine Sophie (d. 1847), daughter of A. P. van de Siepkamp, and had issue one son and two daughters; married 2nd, 8 June 1853 at Wandsbeck near Hamburg (Germany), Lucy (1816-88), daughter of John Kenworthy, carrier, and widow of his brother, Robert Bazley (1811-45), and had further issue one son; died 5 December 1865; will proved 4 April 1866 (effects under £25,000);

(7) James Fairclough Bazley (1816-61), baptised at Bolton, 28 March 1816; yarn agent in Manchester; married, 3 December 1845 at Manchester Collegiate Church (now Cathedral), Sarah (1817-60), daughter of William Birch, engraver, and had issue two sons and four daughters; died 18 December 1861; will proved 27 February 1862 (effects under £4,000).

He lived at Bolton (Lancs) and also had a holiday residence at Lytham (Lancs).

He died at Lytham (Lancs), 6 June, and was buried at St John, Deansgate, Manchester, 11 June 1845; his will was proved 11 October 1845. His wife died 23 November and was buried at St John, Deansgate, 27 November 1834.

Bazley, Sir Thomas (1797-1885), 1st bt. Eldest son of Thomas Bazley (1773-1845) and his wife Anne (k/a Nancy), daughter of Charles Hinton of Horwich (Lancs), born 27 May and baptised at Deane by Bolton, 25 June 1797. Educated at Bolton Grammar School and then apprenticed to Messrs. Ainsworth & Co. of Bolton, 1812. In 1818 he started his own business as a yarn agent before in 1826 moving to Manchester where he formed a partnership with Robert Gardner to operate the New Bridge Mills and the Dean Mills at Halliwell, Bolton. Their firm specialised in fine spinning and linen thread and became the most extensive in this branch of Lancashire's textile industry, employing some 1400 hands in 1861. Gardner withdrew from the partnership in 1847 and Bazley continued alone until he sold the business to W.R. Callender in 1862 at the time of the cotton famine. Both partners were evangelical Anglicans, with a keen sense of responsibility for the welfare of their workers, and at Dean Mills they created a model community which became a much visited attraction. Bazley was a Liberal in politics and was active in local affairs. He was a director of Manchester Chamber of Commerce from the 1840s to 1880 and served as its President, 1845-59. He was also a significant figure in the Anti-Corn Law League, becoming one of the Liberal MPs for Manchester, 1858-80, and concerning himself particularly with the creation of a national system of secular education, realised under the Education Act of 1870. He was created a baronet, 30 November 1869, on the recommendation of Gladstone. Prince Albert, who visited Dean Mills, asked him to joint the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and he went on to serve on the commissions for the Paris exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, as a result of which he was appointed to the French Legion d'honneur. He was a JP for Lancashire and later for Gloucestershire. He married, 2 June 1828 at Abergavenny (Mon.), Mary Maria Sarah (1801-97), daughter of Sebastian Nash, calico printer, of Clayton Mills (Lancs), and had issue:

(1) Sir Thomas Sebastian Bazley (1829-1919), 2nd bt. (q.v.).

He lived in Manchester. From 1860 he rented Tolmers Park, Shenley (Herts), which was convenient for London. After selling his company in 1862 he invested his capital in the purchase of estates in Gloucestershire, where he acquired Eyford Park for his own use and Hatherop Castle for his son.

He died at his summer residence, Riversleigh, Lytham (Lancs) on 18 March, and was buried next to his father at St John, Deansgate, Manchester, 23 March 1885; his will was proved 27 April 1885 (effects £91,977). His widow died aged 96 on 22 August 1897; her will was proved 26 October 1897 (effects £9,159).

Sir Thomas Sebastian Bazley, 2nd bt. 

Bazley, Sir Thomas Sebastian (1829-1919), 2nd bt. Only child of Sir Thomas Bazley (1797-1885), 1st bt. and his wife Mary Maria Sarah, daughter of Sebastian Nash, calico printer of Clayton Mills (Lancs), born 30 April and baptised at St John, Manchester, 23 June 1829. Educated at a boarding school in Bootle (Lancs) and at Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1848; BA 1852; MA 1866). He initially entered his father's firm but left when the business was sold and became a gentleman of leisure. JP for Cheshire and JP and DL for Gloucestershire; High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, 1874-75. He was evidently of a mathematical turn of mind, and published The stars in their courses (1878) and two books on ornamental turning (1872, 1875) of which he was briefly an enthusiastic amateur. He became a freeman of the city of London in 1876. He married, 1 November 1855 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), the daughter and principal heiress of his father's partner, Elizabeth (1827-90), daughter of Robert Gardner of Chaseley, Manchester, and had issue:

(1) Elizabeth Mary Bazley (1857-1940), born 1 July 1857; married, 1883, Gen. Sir Edward Pemberton Leach VC (1847-1913), of the Royal Engineers, second son of Lt-Col. Sir George Archibald Leach KCB, and had issue one son (killed in First World War) and two daughters; died 9 January 1940; will proved 1 April 1940 (estate £15,867);

(2) Annie Caroline Bazley (1862-1944), born 25 February and baptised at Rostherne (Ches), 6 April 1862; married, 16 February 1887 at Hatherop, Frederic Pocock Bulley (1857-1940) of Lullingworth, Painswick (Glos), son of Frederic Bulley, President of Magdalen College, Oxford 1855-85, and had issue one son and four daughters; died 25 June 1944; will proved 9 November 1944 (estate £7,477);

(3) Gardner Sebastian Bazley (1863-1911) (q.v.);

(4) Frances Annette Ellen Bazley (1865-1945), born 3 July and baptised at Rostherne, 13 August 1865; married 5 June 1892 at Hatherop, Dr. Richard Assheton FRS (1863-1915), second son of Ralph Assheton of Downham Hall and Cuerdale (Lancs), and had issue one son and two daughters; died 19 June 1945; will proved 28 August 1945 (estate £3,864);

(5) Jessie Marion Atkinson Bazley (1867-1947), born 31 July and baptised at East Barnet (Herts), 27 August 1867; married, 20 April 1911, Rev. Frederick Douglas Bateman (d. 1933), vicar of Ampney St Mary (Glos) and later rector of Minchinhampton (Glos), but had no issue; died 8 June 1947; will proved 6 October 1947 (estate £7,620);

(6) Lucy Maud Mary Bazley (1869-1960), born 15 March and baptised at Hatherop, 31 May 1869; married, 27 July 1898 at Hatherop, Robert Dimsdale (1865-1950) of Ravenshill, Eastleach (Glos), third son of Robert Dimsdale MP, Baron Dimsdale (a Baron of the Russian Empire), banker and politician, and had issue; died aged 90 on 24 February 1960; will proved 29 September 1960 (estate £5,880).

He leased Agden Hall, Lymm (Ches.), 1855-67, but then moved to Hatherop Castle (Glos) which his father bought for his use. He gave Hatherop to his son in 1900, and spent his later years at Bournemouth and Kilmorie, Torquay - the latter a large villa which became an hotel after his death and was demolished in the 1960s.

He died aged 89 on 6 January and was buried at Hatherop, 10 January 1919; his will was proved 31 May 1919 (estate £229,690). His wife died 1 May 1890; her will was proved 4 June 1890 (effects £47,341).

Bazley, Gardner Sebastian (1863-1911). Only son of Sir Thomas Sebastian Bazley (1829-1919), 2nd bt., and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Gardner of Chaseley, Manchester, born 14 October and baptised at Rostherne (Ches.), 6 December 1863. Educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford (matriculated 1882; BA 1886; MA 1889) and Inner Temple (admitted 1885; called 1888). Barrister-at-law. JP (from 1889), DL (from 1899) and County Councillor for Gloucestershire; High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, 1901-02. He served in the 3rd (militia) battn of the Yorkshire Regiment (Lt., 1886; resigned 1889) and the 4th (militia) battn. of the Gloucestershire Regiment (Capt., 1889; resigned 1895). He married, 5 June 1903 at Holy Trinity, Brompton (Middx), Ruth Evelyn (d. 1962), elder daughter of Sir Edward Stafford Howard of Thornbury Castle (Glos), and had issue:

(1) Elizabeth Rachel Bazley (1904-80), born 6 January and baptised at Hatherop, 24 February 1904; married, 16 October 1930, Christopher Evelyn Blunt OBE (1904-87) of Ramsbury Hill (Berks), merchant banker and numismatist, second son of Rev. Arthur Stanley Vaughan Blunt OBE, vicar of Ham (Surrey) and elder brother of the art historian and spy, Anthony Blunt, and had issue one son and two daughters; died 19 May 1980; will proved 31 July 1980 (estate £147,237);

(2) Frances Catherine Ruth Bazley (1905-85), born 16 December 1905 and baptised at Hatherop, 20 January 1906; mildly eccentric and unconventional artist; married, 8 January 1932 at Hatherop, Richard Arthur Warren Hughes OBE (1900-76) of Laugharne (Pembs), poet, playwright and novelist, second son of Arthur Hughes (1861-1905), and had issue two sons and three daughters; died 9 May 1985; will proved 14 August 1985 (estate £63,748);

(3) Sir Thomas Stafford Bazley (1907-97), 3rd bt. (q.v.);

(4) Rachel Constance Bazley (1909-94), born 2 May and baptised at Holy Trinity, Brompton, 18 June 1909; married, 25 January 1939 at Hatherop, (Edward John) Ronald Bennett (1902-77), farmer and racehorse trainer, son of Rev. Edward Herbert Bennett of Rendcomb (Glos), and had issue four sons and one daughter; died 2 December 1994; will proved 13 February 1995 (estate £188,632);

(5) Anthony Gardner Bazley (1911-37), born 4 June and baptised at Hatherop, 2 July 1911; farmer at Dean Farm, Fairford (Glos); an officer in 5th (militia) battn, Gloucestershire Regiment (2nd Lt., 1931); married, 9 February 1934, Anne (1913-2008) (who m2, 1 July 1944, Francis Philip Raphael Howard (1905-99), 2nd Baron Howard of Penrith), daughter of John Beaumont Hotham, and had issue two daughters; died in London, 23 May 1937 and was buried at Hatherop; will proved 31 July 1937 (estate £78,080).

He was given Hatherop Castle by his father in 1900 with a view to avoiding death duties. His widow and her second husband lived latterly at Quenington (Glos).

He died in the lifetime of his father, following an operation for appendicitis, 22 June, and was buried at Hatherop, 27 June 1911; his will was proved 12 September 1911 (estate £310,999). His widow married 2nd, 2 September 1913 at St Margaret, Brighton (Sussex), Cdr. Francis Charles Cadogan RN (d. 1970) and had further issue; she died 14 March 1962.

Bazley, Sir Thomas Stafford (1907-97), 3rd bt. Elder son of Gardner Sebastian Bazley (1863-1911) and his wife Ruth Evelyn, elder daughter of Sir Edward Stafford Howard of Thornbury Castle (Glos), born 5 October and baptised at Hatherop, 10 November 1907. Educated at Harrow and Magdalen College, Oxford. In the Second World War he served with the intelligence services and the Ministry of Information. He was an early pioneer of organic farming and founded Marigold Health Foods.  He married, 15 October 1945, Carmen Odette (1923-2009), only daughter of Jacinto Tulla of London W11, and had issue:

(1) Sir Thomas John Sebastian Bazley (b. 1948), 4th bt., born 31 August 1948; educated at St. Christopher's School, Letchworth (Herts) and Magdalen College, Oxford (BA); lives in Notting Hill, London W2; unmarried and without issue;

(2) Catherine Elisabet Annemarie Bazley (b. 1950), born 16 August 1950;

(3) Virginia Isabella Marged Bazley (b. 1953), born 19 April 1953;

(4) Anthony Martin Christopher Bazley (b. 1958), born 23 February 1958; heir presumptive to baronetcy; married, 27 April 1996, Claudia Patricia Montoya Cano, daughter of Ovidio Montoya of Colombia, and has issue one son and one daughter;

(5) John Francis Alexander Bazley (b. 1961), born 23 February 1961; married, 2005, Vanessa A. Clarke.

He inherited the Hatherop Castle estate on the death of his father in 1911. The house was requisitioned for military use during the Second World War and in 1946 he leased it for use as a girls' secondary school. The school bought the freehold in 1972. Sir Thomas lived latterly at Eastleach Downs Farm, from which the estate continued to be run until 2002 when his children sold it to the Ernest Cook Trust, with a view to preserving the character and sense of community in the villages of Hatherop and Eastleach.

He died 14 April 1997; his will was proved 13 June 1997. His widow died 19 October 2009; her will was proved 28 June 2010.

Principal sources

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2003, p. 297; Gloucestershire Life, April 1973, pp. 46-48; VCH Glos, vii, 1981, p. 91; P. Hunting, ‘Henry Clutton’s country houses’, Architectural History, 1983, pp. 96-104; D. Jaques, Georgian gardens, 1984, p. 83; Fiona Cowell, ‘Richard Woods: a preliminary account’, Garden History, xiv (2), 1986, pp. 85-119; xv (1), 1987, pp. 19-54; A. Coghlan, Hatherop Castle: a history, 1999; D. Verey & A. Brooks, The buildings of England: Gloucestershire - The Cotswolds, 1999, pp. 406-07; N.W. Kingsley, The country houses of Gloucestershire, vol. 1, 1500-1660, 2nd edn, 2001, pp. 112-13; N.W. Kingsley, The country houses of Gloucestershire, vol. 3, 1830-2000, 2001, pp. 156-58; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Sir Thomas Bazley, 1st bt.

Location of archives

Gardner & Bazley, cotton manufacturers: miscellaneous letters and papers, 1832-62 [Bolton Archives & Local Studies, ZHB]

Bazley family of Hatherop Castle, baronets: deeds, estate and family papers, 1515-1987 [Gloucestershire Archives, D540, D1924]

Coat of arms

Per pale, azure and sable, a bee volant or between three fleurs-de-lys argent.

Can you help?

• If anyone can supply photographs of the interior of Hatherop Castle before it became a school, I should be very pleased to see them.
• I should be most grateful if anyone can provide photographs or portraits of people whose names appear in bold above.
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 5 October 2021.