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| Hicks Beach, Earls St Aldwyn |
The genealogy in part 3 of this account begins with Robert Hicks (c.1524-57), who came from a Gloucestershire minor gentry family based at Cromhall and Tortworth. His parentage is a little obscure, but we know from his will that his mother was Margaret Hicks, and she was probably the wife of John Hicks (d. 1546) of Tortworth. Robert was apprenticed at a tender age to a London ironmonger, Thomas Bartholomew, but instead of entering this trade after completing his articles, he contrived to establish himself as a mercer in Cheapside. This was obviously a profitable concern, and before his early death, Robert had begun using his surplus cash to lend money. His widow, Julian or Juliana, who was a daughter of William Arthur of Clapton Court (Som.), continued the business and remained in charge until her death in 1592. Her eldest son, Sir Michael Hicks (1543-1612), kt., was sent to Cambridge, where he came under the influence of early Puritan scholars, and Lincoln's Inn, and he developed horizons and contacts beyond the London corporate world. By 1573 he was on the staff of the Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, 1st Lord Burghley, and from 1580 to 1598, he acted as Burghley's patronage secretary. This was a position of great influence, for he stood between Burghley and the many people - many of them wealthy, well-connected people - who sought favours from the great man. In accordance with the traditions of the age, Michael Hicks expected to be rewarded for his assistance, either by gifts or future favours (or both!) and he became moderately wealthy as a result. His brother, Sir Baptist Hicks (c.1551-1629), although also educated at Cambridge, took over the mercery and moneylending business after his mother's death and eventually became far richer than his brother. He was appointed mercer to the Queen in 1596 and was made mercer to the King when James I came to the throne in 1603, but it was his moneylending activities which made him a man to be propitiated: he knew too many secrets and was owed too much to be crossed! Fortunately, both Sir Michael and Sir Baptist had their softer side: Sir Michael had charm and and a ready wit, and was a valued friend; Sir Baptist increasingly turned his growing wealth to philanthropic projects.
It was usual at this time for the newly wealthy to invest surplus capital in land and a country house, which both strengthened their own social credentials and laid the foundations for their sons to complete the transition to the landed gentry. Sir Michael Hicks, after half a century of bachelor life, married a widow with a life interest in the Ruckholts estate in Essex, which became his home. He also bought estates at Lenton (Nottinghamshire) in 1604 and Beverston (Gloucestershire) in 1610, but the latter two look like investment properties rather than places at which he had any thought of living. In 1609, Sir Baptist, with his deeper pockets, bought a very grand and nearly new house - later known as Campden House - just west of London at Kensington (Middx), and remodelled it to make it even grander. He also bought the Chipping Campden estate in Gloucestershire and built an immensely grand new house there (Campden Manor), which he surrounded by formal gardens of the most fashionable form. It was from this property that took his title of Viscount Campden when he was raised to the peerage in 1628. By then, he knew he would have no son to succeed to the title, and so he negotiated a special remainder in the peerage patent, which provided that on his death his title would pass to his favoured son-in-law, Sir Edward Noel (d. 1643), who also inherited the greater part of his estates, including both Campden House, Kensington and Campden Manor, Gloucestershire: their subsequent history is part of the story of the Noel family, Earls of Gainsborough, who will be the subject of a future post.
Sir Michael Hicks left a surviving son, Sir William Hicks (1596-1680), who was created a baronet in 1619, soon after he came of age. Like his father, he was a Puritan in religion, and at the outbreak of the Civil War he supported the Parliamentarian side, but for reasons which are not now clear he changed sides in the interval between the first and second phases of the Civil War, and joined the Royalist faction. He was subsequently fined for his 'delinquency' and in November 1649 he went abroad, with his elder son and his nephew, Michael Airmyn, although he was probably not overseas for very long. Sir William had inherited all his father's property at Lenton and in the city of London in 1612, and on his mother's death he also inherited the Beverstone Castle and Great Witcombe estates. Ruckholts, which had been a Parvishe family seat, passed to his half-brother, Gabriel Parvishe, but was sold to Sir William later the same year, and continued to be the family seat. In 1669, he also bought the manor of Chigwell, close to Ruckholts.
Sir William Hicks, 1st bt., had two surviving sons: Sir William Hicks (1629-1702), 2nd bt., and the considerably younger Sir Michael Hicks (1645-1710), kt. The extensive property that the 1st baronet had accumulated was divided between them, with the 2nd baronet receiving Beverston, Ruckholts/Chigwell and Lenton, the last of which he sold in 1686. Sir Michael was given Witcombe Park on his marriage in 1679, and also received some London property and some land at Chigwell. Ruckholt continued to be the 2nd baronet's principal seat, and was encased in brick and remodelled at considerable expense. A new wing was built at Beverston after a fire in 1691, but there is no evidence that Sir William himself ever used it, so this may have been done by, or for the benefit of, tenants. Sir Michael was obviously expected to make his home at Witcombe, but the old house there was really not fit for the purpose, and in the 1690s he pulled most of it down and built a new house, which in due course passed to his son, Howe Hicks (1689-1727).
Sir William Hicks, 2nd bt., was survived by two sons, Sir Henry Hicks (always known as Harry) (1666-1755), 3rd bt., and Charles Hicks (1678-1760), but all of the family estates passed to the former, who sold Ruckholts in 1720 and built a new house (Bowling Green House, later the Manor House) on his Chigwell property soon afterwards. He again had two sons who survived to adulthood: Sir Robert Hicks (1712-68), 4th bt., and Michael Hicks (1719-64). Sir Robert was addicted to gambling, and after his father had paid his debts on several occasions it became clear that if he were allowed to inherit the family estates, ruin would soon follow. I rather assume that Sir Harry forced his son to agree to break the entail on the estates as a condition of paying further debts. He then seems to have re-entailed his property on his younger son, Michael, who was charged with the payment of an adequate but not generous allowance to his elder brother, whose difficulties increased in the 1750s, when he became blind. Some mystery attaches to Sir Robert's partner, Mary Greydon, who lived with him as his wife for more than twenty years. There is no evidence that they ever married, but there seems no reason why they should not have done so: she came from a respectable background (her deceased father had been an Admiral), she was affectionately regarded by both Sir Harry Hicks and Michael Hicks, and there is no evidence that either she or the 4th baronet had been married before. They lived at Hemel Hempstead (Herts) and when she died in 1783 she was buried as Mary Hicks.
Michael Hicks (1719-64), who inherited the Beverston estate and Bowling Green House in 1755 because of his elder brother's inadequacies, had neither wife nor children, and after his father's death he agreed with the remainderman under the entail, John Baptist Hicks (1721?-91) of Hoddesdon (Herts), that they should break the entail once more, allowing Michael to dispose of his property as he pleased, in return for a payment to J.B. Hicks, who was hard up. When Michael died in 1764, he placed his Essex property in trust for his elder brother and his two sisters and their offspring, and bequeathed the Beverstone estate to his distant kinsman, Michael Hicks (later Hicks Beach) (1760-1830), who was a child of four at the time. When Sir Robert Hicks died in 1768, the family baronetcy passed to John Baptist Hicks of Hoddesdon, who became the 5th baronet, and when he died in 1791 it passed to his second cousin, Sir Howe Hicks (1722-1801), 6th bt., of Witcombe Park.
Sir Howe Hicks, who was the grandson of the Sir Michael Hicks (1645-1710), kt., mentioned above, had two sons and two daughters who survived to maturity. The two sons were remarkably different in both temperament and character. The elder, who succeeded to the Witcombe estate, was Sir William Hicks (1754-1834), 7th bt., 'a little, frail man with a puckered brow and a stuttering tongue', who seems to have lived much in the shadow of his father, and became autocratic and bad tempered after his father's death. The younger was the Michael Hicks (later Hicks Beach) (1760-1830), who was the ultimate heir to Michael Hicks (1719-64). He also was not a large man, but was handsome, clever and possessed of a ready wit. He was destined to re-make the fortunes of the family through his marriage to Henrietta Maria Beach, and we shall return to him shortly.
Sir William Hicks, 7th bt., despite his disadvantages, made an excellent marriage to Anne Rachel Chute (c.1756-1839), of The Vyne (Hants), and the couple lived at a town house in Cheltenham as well as at Witcombe. Their only surviving child was a daughter, also Anne Rachel (1794-1885), who was barely five feet tall, singularly ill-favoured, and possibly not very bright. She was, however, intended as the heir to both Witcombe and The Vyne, which made her a very substantial heiress and a tempting prize for unscrupulous adventurers. Although she had a number of suitors, she succumbed to the charms of Sir Lambert Cromie, 2nd bt. (c.1780-1841), the handsome but penniless son of a bankrupt Liverpool banker who had fled his creditors (and left his partners in the lurch) to live in abstemious exile in France. Cromie persuaded Anne Rachel Hicks to elope with him to Gretna Green, where they were married in February 1816. Faced with a fait accompli, the family bowed to the inevitable and there was a second, more regular marriage in London a month later. The young couple then embarked on a honeymoon tour of Europe, but they had got no further than Paris when Sir Lambert seems to have realised just how poor a bargian he had struck, and not only abandoned his wife but ran off with her personal maid. Poor Anne Rachel was obliged to write and ask her irascible father to come and rescue her: her mortification and humiliation must have been intense. Back home, her maternal uncle abandoned his plan to leave her The Vyne, and her father gave serious consideration to cutting her out of his will too, although in the end he contented himself with leaving Witcombe to his widow for life, and to Anne Rachel only after that; she came into her inheritance in 1839. She remained a sad, rather tragic, figure for the rest of her life. In the 1840s she became a close friend and supporter of the Rev. Francis Close, the dynamic rector of Cheltenham, whose schemes for improving the religious and moral welfare of the town and its educational opportunities required constant investment, and she made donations she could ill afford. She supported as a companion the daughter of an old friend, whose ill-advised matrimonial adventure she had encouraged against the wishes of the girl's father, and she developed extraordinarily conservative household routines, putting the clock back not just to the 18th century but even beyond: Witcombe is said to have been the last house in England where the servants ate off pewter plates and drank beer for breakfast, or where open house hospitality was offered to all comers at the back door. Nothing, by contrast, was spent on repairs and maintenance, and when Lady Cromie finally died in 1885 the house was largely uninhabitable.
The story of the Beach family is shorter, simpler and less well documented than that of the Hickses. It begins with William Beach (d. 1686) who came from a family of yeomen farmers at Brixton Deverill (Wilts). Perhaps partly due to a good marriage, he was able to buy the manor of Fittleton (Wilts) in 1665 and the manor house at Keevil (Wilts) in 1678. His only son, William Beach (1655-1741) was sent to Oxford and married Anne Wither of Hall Place (Hants), and was in a position to buy the Keevil estate in 1681, during his father's lifetime. It was probably the younger William who commissioned the new manor house at Fittleton, although he had evidently moved to Keevil before his death. His eldest surviving son, Thomas Beach (1684-1753), married in 1718 Jane Harding (d. 1735) from Mere (Wilts), a marriage which unexpectedly and in the fullness of time delivered a tremendous windfall to the family. Their son William Beach (1719-90) inherited Keevil, Fittleton and Brixton Deverill, and his marriage, to a second Anne Wither of Hall Place (Hants), was eventually to bring that estate to the family. In 1775, however, he received a much bigger legacy when his maternal uncle, James Harding, an East India merchant, died and left him all his property, including lands in Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset and a considerable fortune. William responded by expanding his estate with the purchase of Netheravon House from the Duke of Beaufort, Shaw Hill House at Melksham, and funding his son-in-law's purchase Williamstrip Park in Gloucestershire.
William's good fortune in the matter of inheritance was balanced by his shortcomings as a parent. At a time when many families were adopting affective relationships with the domestic circle, William and his wife expected to dictate their children's lives. Their only surviving son, William Wither Beach (1748-1826), who had been a promising poet at Oxford, was reputedly unhinged by his parents' refusal to consent to his matrimonial plans. He became so ill and so permanently incapacitated that he was left only an allowance and a home at Netheravon House in his father's will. Their elder daughter, Ann Beach (1749-71) was twice prevented from eloping with the local curate, and was locked in the room over the porch at Keevil Manor for months as a result; she finally got her way when she came of age and could not longer be stopped, but she died of tuberculosis a few months later. Henrietta Maria Beach (1760-1837) was William's youngest child, and reputedly the apple of her mother's eye. She and her husband, Michael Hicks (1760-1837) ultimately came into almost the entire Beach estate and fortune, either on their marriage or at her father's death, when they took the name Hicks Beach to mark the inheritance.
It was with this couple that the family reached the apogee of its fortunes. From the Hicks side they inherited Beverstone, and in 1799 they purchased the Bowling Green House property in Essex that had been in the family for generations, only to sell it again the following year. From the Beach side, they inherited Brixton Deverill, Fittleton, Keevil, Netheravon and Shaw Hill House, as well as the funds to complete the purchase of Williamstrip. All these estates produced a considerable income, making them far richer than most untitled families and richer than a good many baronets and peers. They remodelled Williamstrip (which became their main home) to the designs of Sir John Soane, who also altered Netheravon, where they spent several months each year. With their wealth came status in the county: Michael Hicks Beach was a JP in both Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and Treasurer of the Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions. He also became MP for Cirencester, 1794-1818: the first of the family for several generations to aspire to a parliamentary seat. Only in their offspring were the couple less fortunate: of eight known children, only two sons and a daughter survived to adulthood, although many of the others died not in infancy but as they were approaching maturity, a pattern that suggests death from tuberculosis rather than childhood ailments. Their daughter Jane (1801-82) stayed at home looking after her parents and then acting as housekeeper to her brother William before marrying at the age of 47. She and her spouse, Edward St. John, seem to have been happily married for more than 30 years, and Jane emerged in the 1850s as a very competent and largely self-taught pioneering woman photographer.
Michael Hicks Beach (d. 1830) outlived his elder son, Michael Beach Hicks Beach (1780-1815), and when he died his property was divided between his two grandsons and his younger son. Beverston, Fittleton, Williamstrip and Netheravon passed to the elder grandson, Sir Michael Hicks Hicks Beach (1809-54), who also succeeded his great-uncle as 8th baronet in 1834. His younger son, William Hicks Beach (later Beach) (1783-1856) inherited the Keevil estate from his father and also the Oakley Hall (formerly Hall Place) estate in Hampshire from his cousin, Wither Bramston, in 1832. The younger brother of the 8th baronet, William Hicks Hicks Beach (1810-44), was in remainder to the Witcombe Park estate and was expected to inherit that property on Lady Cromie's death, but since she outlived him by more than forty years, he saw no benefit from the estate. Indeed, one might say it killed him, for he died of internal injuries received while cutting trees on the estate during a visit in 1844.
The Oakley Hall and Keevil House estates descended from William Hicks Beach (later Beach) (1783-1856) to his son, William Wither Bramston Beach (1826-1901), who remodelled Oakley Hall to the designs of T.H. Wyatt. He was a long-serving Hampshire MP, and had the distinction of being the Father of the House before his death. He lived at Oakley and let Keevil to his brother-in-law, Sir John Williams Wallington (1822-1910). His intention may have been that ultimately his elder son, Archibald William Hicks Beach (1859-1924) should have Oakley and his younger son, Ellice Michael Hicks Beach (1875-1946) Keevil, but his widow bought Deane House, close to Oakley Hall, for Ellice, and Keevil was sold in 1911. Oakley Hall descended to Archibald's son, William Guy Hicks Beach (1891-1953), a stockbroker, who was bankrupted in 1931, presumably as a result of the stock market crash. Oakley Hall had to be sold, and he lived subsequently at a smaller house in Maidenhead. Deane House was sold after Ellice's death in 1946.
Sir M.H. Hicks Beach, who inherited the lion's share of the family property from his father in 1830, sold Beverston in 1842, but the rest of his estates passed on his death in 1854 to his eldest surviving son, Sir Michael Edward Hicks Beach (1837-1916), 9th bt., while his other son, William Frederick Hicks Beach (1841-1923) was established as the heir to Lady Cromie at Witcombe Park. After taking a first class degree at Oxford and making a Continental tour, the 9th baronet entered Parliament as Conservative MP for East Gloucestershire in 1864. He represented this seat (which his father had also briefly held for a few months at the end of his life) until 1885, after which he sat for Bristol West until 1906. He was quickly marked as a 'high flyer' in Parliament, and began a lengthy ministerial career as early as 1868. He held the key appointment of Chief Secretary for Ireland twice, from 1874-78 and again in 1886-87, and although a strong opponent of Home Rule, he had considerable sympathy with the plight of the oppressed majority and initiated programmes of reform and improvement, some of which did not bear fruit until his departure from Ireland. Trouble with his eyesight obliged him to resign office in 1887, but he recovered and was later made President of the Board of Trade, 1888-92 and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1895-1902. At this time, the Government was using compulsory purchase powers to acquire the whole of Salisbury Plain for use as a military training area, and the land required included the Netheravon and Fittleton estates, which he sold to the War Office in 1898. It is said (though this is probably an apocryphal story) that as Chancellor of the Exchequer he had to sign the cheque for the purchase of his own lands! He resigned from the Government in 1902 when Sir Arthur Balfour (with whom his relations had always been strained) became Prime Minister. In 1906 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount St. Aldwyn, taking his title from the parish of Coln St. Aldwyn in which his principal seat lay, and in 1915 was advanced to be Earl St. Aldwyn and Viscount Quenington.
Lord St. Aldwyn's eldest son, Michael Hugh Hicks Beach (1877-1916), who took the courtesy title of Viscount Quenington from 1915, became MP for Tewkesbury in 1906 and was regarded as a promising man in Parliament, although with the Conservatives out of power he never saw ministerial office. In 1901 he was able to buy back from the Government the manor house at Fittleton which had proved surplus to military requirements, and he made his home there, ultimately bequeathing it to his unmarried sisters. With the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Gloucestershire Regiment, and was sent to Egypt; his wife went too, staying in Cairo so she could see him occasionally when he was on leave. Sadly, she died of enteric fever at the beginning of March 1916 and six weeks later he was killed in action. By the time news of his son's death reached Lord St. Aldwyn back in England he was already gravely ill, and the shock led to his death just six days later. As a result of this sequence of deaths, Viscount Quenington's only son, a child of three, succeeded to the peerage as 2nd Earl St. Aldwyn, and also to the Williamstrip estate, which was let during his minority. He was brought up by his grandmother, and after coming of age in 1933 he joined the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, with whom he fought in the Second World War. Returning to Williamstrip after the war, he demolished the Victorian conservatory and made some internal changes that resulted in the loss of Sir John Soane's library. He entered politics in the 1950s, and after holding junior ministerial office he became the Conservative Chief Whip in the House of Lords from 1958 to 1978, a position of considerable influence but one seldom in the public eye. He and his wife had three sons, and in 1992 he was succeeded by the eldest, Michael Henry Hicks Beach (b. 1950), 3rd Earl St. Aldwyn, a businessman with strong Brazilian interests and connections. He sold the house and park at Williamstrip in 2007, while retaining most of the estate.
William Frederick Hicks Beach (1841-1923), the younger son of the 8th baronet, was identified from early childhood as the heir to the Witcombe Park estate. After his first marriage in 1865, he rented Sandleford Lodge near Newbury for some years, before moving to Cranham Lodge on the Witcombe estate. He finally succeeded Lady Cromie at Witcombe Park in 1885, but quickly realised that the house was in such a poor state of repair that it was uninhabitable. He pulled most of it down, and in 1891 built what was intended to be a temporary house. In 1905 a tower was added to one corner, and this may mark the moment when plans for a grander rebuilding were finally abandoned. William took his responsibilities as a landowner very seriously, and devoted most of his time to public duty as a magistrate, chairman of the Cheltenham Board of Guardians and County Councillor. After his nephew, Viscount Quenington, was killed in 1916, he also agreed to be nominated to succeed him as MP for Tewkesbury, although he only served for two years as a stop-gap. His eldest son, William Hicks Beach (1866-1906) is said to have given up a career in the army after a failed love affair and emigrated to California, where he lived on remittances from home and died, a sad and lonely figure, in his 40th year. Three of his brothers also moved to the United States or Canada in search of new opportunities, and although this was an age when many younger sons of the gentry followed the same path, thinking that the opportunities at home would be limited by agricultural depression and changes in taxation, it is surprising to see such a mass exodus. The son who remained at home and became his father's heir was Ellis Hicks Beach (1874-1943), a career civil servant who became Chief Registrar of Chancery. He in turn left Witcombe to his elder son, William Whitehead Hicks Beach (1907-75), who became solicitor in 1932 and a partner in the (still extant) firm of Payne Hicks Beach the following year. After service in the Second World War, he was elected Conservative MP for Cheltenham in 1950 and his popularity is reflected in his increasing majority at each election until he stood down in 1964. He was succeeded at Witcombe by his only son, Mark William Hicks Beach (1943-98), whose early death left his widow, Cecilia Ruth Hicks Beach (1939-2019) running the estate for many years. In 2007, their younger son demolished the 'temporary house' built by his great-great-grandfather, and replaced it by a new, fashionably neo-Georgian block; he has also more recently taken over the management of the estate.
Campden House, Kensington, Middlesex
The first house on this site was probably a spectacular timber-framed mansion built for Sir Walter Cope (d. 1614), who began leasing land in Kensington c.1591, and was living here by 1598. A group of drawings by John Thorpe in the album of his designs in the Soane Museum are believed to relate to this house.
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| Campden House, Kensington: drawing by John Thorpe of the timber-framed house built for Walter Cope in the 1590s. Image: Soane Museum. |
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| Campden House: a view of the house stated to be drawn by Wensceslaus Hollar in 1647, but perhaps made in the early 19th century on the basis of earlier views. Image: Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Libraries. |
A drawing in Kensington Public Library which purports to be a view by Wenceslaus Hollar of Campden House in 1647 may be a 19th century forgery, but it agrees pretty well with the other depictions of the house, including a painting of the house in c.1660. (The reputed date of the Hollar drawing counts against its authenticity, for during the Civil War the property of the Royalist 3rd Viscount Campden was sequestrated (indeed, Campden House became the offices of the Middlesex sequestration committee), and he recovered it in 1647 on payment of a heavily composition fine of £9,000: it seems unlikely he would have been in a position to commission an engraving of the house at this time).
In the 1690s, the 3rd Earl of Gainsborough leased the house to Princess Anne of Denmark (later Queen Anne) and her son, the Duke of Gloucester, and they were succeeded as tenants by the Countess of Burlington and her son, the 3rd Earl (1694-1753); it is intriguing to think that some of the formative years of this steadfast promoter of Palladian architecture were spent in such a Jacobean house! For almost a century after Stephen Pitt purchased the Campden House estate in 1751 the mansion was used as a boarding school, and during this period it underwent considerable alterations including the removal of most of the decorative features from the south front, which was rendered. William Frederick Wolley, who took on the lease in 1847, spent considerable sums on restoring the house, and added a theatre in which Charles Dickens acted with Wilkie Collins in the latter's play, The Lighthouse, in July 1855.
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| Campden House, Kensington: an early 19th century lithograph of the house from the south-east by Edwin Dalton Smith. |
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| Campden House, Kensington: an early 19th century engraving of the house in use as a school. |
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| Campden House, Kensington: the mansion as rebuilt after the fire of 1862. |
Descent: built c.1590?? for Sir Walter Cope; sold 1609 to Sir Baptist Hicks (d. 1629), 1st bt. and 1st Viscount Campden; to son-in-law, Sir Edward Noel (d. 1643), 1st bt., 1st Baron Noel of Ridlington and 2nd Viscount Campden; to son, Col. Baptist Noel (d. 1682), 3rd Viscount Campden; to son, Edward Noel (1641-89), 4th Viscount Campden and 1st Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Wriothesley Baptist Noel (d. 1690), 2nd Earl of Gainsborough; to half-nephew, Baptist Noel (1684-1714), 3rd Earl of Gainsborough, who leased it to Princess Anne of Denmark (later Queen Anne) and then the Countess of Burlington and her son, the 3rd Earl of Burlington, before selling it in 1708 to Laud D'Oyly (d. c.1709), merchant; to son, Robert D'Oyly; sold 1710 to Robert Balle; sold 1719 to Nicholas Lechmere, 1st Baron Lechmere; to nephew, Edmund Lechmere; sold 1751 to Stephen Pitt (d. 1793), who leased it as a boarding school; to son, Stephen Pitt, who also leased it as a school until 1847 and then to William Frederick Wolley; lease sold 1872 to Metropolitan Railway Co., which sold to Alexander Lang Elder; to widow, who sold 1894 to Adams Daw, who demolished it in 1900.
Campden Manor, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire
Sir Baptist Hicks purchased the manor of Chipping Campden from Anthony Smith, whose family had held it since 1553, in 1609. As a result of his brother's friendship with Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, Hicks must undoubtedly have been familiar with the splendid house and garden that Lord Salisbury created at Hatfield before 1612. Building emerged as one of Hicks' preoccupations in the first decade of the 17th century, when he built Hicks Hall at Clerkenwell as a new home for the Middlesex Quarter Sessions. In 1612 he plunged into a number of projects at Campden, including the almshouses in Church Street, and the creation of the town's water supply, while in London he was busy remodelling Campden House at Kensington. The project to build a new house at Chipping Campden is said to have been begun in 1613. The estate at this time did not offer anything like a grand residence, for the previous owners had lived in the small manor house at Combe, south-west of the town (itself rebuilt in 1628 and now knoiwn as Campden House). Hicks' new building was intended as a reflection of his vast wealth, and Bigland, writing in the late 18th century, states that:
“From an accurate Plan and Elevation still extant, it appears to have been an Edifice in the boldest Style of the Day. It consisted of four Fronts, the principal towards the Garden, upon the grand Terras; at each Angle was a lateral Projection of some Feet, with spacious Bow Windows; in the Centre a Portico with a Series of Columns of the five Orders (as in the Schools at Oxford), and an open Corridore. The Parapet was finished, with Pediments of a capricious Taste; and the Chimneys were twisted Pillars, with Corinthian Capitals. A very capacious Dome issued from the Roof, which was regularly illuminated for the Direction of Travellers during the Night. This immense Building was enriched with Frizes and Entablatures most profusely sculptured; it is reported to have been erected at the Expence of £29000 and to have occupied, with its Offices, a Site of eight Acres.”(A footnote states that the ‘plan and elevation’ referred to was “in the possession of Lord Gainsborough, the Rev. Mr. Weston, and other copies”, but no copy is known to have survived. This may, however, be the origin of the known later depictions referred to below.)
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| Campden Manor: drawing of the house by William Hughes, made in the 18th century, probably on the basis of an earlier original, now lost. Image: British Library. |
One reason why the cost was so high may be that Sir Baptist feared he would not live to see the house finished, and hurried building on; for the same reason it is likely that the garden was formed concurrently with the building of the house. In fact Sir Baptist survived until a year after his ennoblement as Viscount Campden in 1628. His widow lived on at Campden until 1643, but the estates passed to his son-in-law, Edward, Lord Noel, who was killed in the Royalist defence of Oxford. Two years later, in 1645, Royalist troops who had been garrisoning Campden Manor burnt it down in their retreat, to prevent it becoming a Parliamentarian stronghold. Sir Baptist's daughter, Lady Juliana Noel, continued to stay at Campden from time to time after the fire, and one tradition asserts that she used a part of the main house that had not been destroyed, although it is more likely that one or both of the banqueting houses were refitted for her use. After her death in 1680 (aged 95), it would seem that the ruins of the house quickly became a stone quarry for the townspeople of Campden (many of the early 18th-century stone façades in the High Street at Campden show calcined stonework), and only a fragment of the main, south façade of the house itself still survives; a forlorn crag of masonry with some windows and part of a doorway. A map of the estate in 1722 shows the gate lodges but not the banqueting houses, and marks the site of the house only as Fletcher’s Orchard. Despite the fact that it was so short-lived, at least four illustrations purporting to show the intact house are known to exist, and although none is earlier than the mid-18th century, all are taken from the same slightly elevated viewpoint, and they may derive from the plan and elevation referred to by Bigland. (If all these drawings can be traced back to a single original in the possession of the Noel family, it is possible that it perished in the disastrous fire at Exton Hall in 1810).
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| Campden Manor: a sketch plan by John Thorpe, tentatively identified as relating to Campden Manor. Image: Soane Museum. |
These illustrations show a complex but symmetrical south façade of three storeys and attics, 11 bays long, with canted bays running the full height of the house at either end and a recessed five-bay centre. This typically Jacobean front, with its many different planes, was capped by four shaped gables whose sinuous curves contrasted with the flat surfaces of the walls below, and by a tall octagonal cupola. The drawings all show a weak control of perspective, and give no indication what the back of the house was like, but a recent geophysical survey has suggested that the building was remarkably shallow, and a sketch plan of an unnamed building by John Thorpe has now been tentatively identified as a plan of the house. Given that a group of drawings by Thorpe in the same album are identified as relating to Campden House in Kensington, this opens up the tantalising possibility that Thorpe was the architect of both buildings, and perhaps the architect generally employed by Hicks on his various building projects in the early 17th century. There is also a reconstruction drawing of the 1820s by C.R. Cockerell among his papers at the RIBA, which suggests that rather more survived of the house at that time than today.
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| Campden Manor: the gate lodges |
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| Campden Manor: the east banqueting house before restoration. Image: Nicholas Kingsley. Some rights reserved. |
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| Campden Manor: survey of the garden earthworks by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1987. Image: Crown Copyright. |
Descent: built for Sir Baptist Hicks (c.1551-1629), 1st bt. and 1st Viscount Campden; to son-in-law, Sir Edward Noel (d. 1643), 1st bt., 1st Baron Noel of Ridlington and 2nd Viscount Campden; to son, Col. Baptist Noel (d. 1682), 3rd Viscount Campden; to son, Edward Noel (1641-89), 4th Viscount Campden and 1st Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Wriothesley Baptist Noel (d. 1690), 2nd Earl of Gainsborough; to half-nephew, Baptist Noel (1684-1714), 3rd Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Baptist Noel (1708-51), 4th Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Baptist Noel (1740-59), 5th Earl of Gainsborough; to brother, Henry Noel (1743-98), 6th Earl of Gainsborough; to sister Jane (d. 1811), widow of Gerard Anne Edwardes (1734-73); to son, Sir Gerard Noel Edwardes (later Noel) (1759-1838), 2nd bt.; to son, Sir Charles Edwards (later Noel) (1781-1866), 3rd bt., 3rd Baron Barham and later 1st Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Charles George Noel (1818-81), 2nd Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Charles William Francis Noel (1850-1926), 3rd Earl of Gainsborough; to son, Arthur Edward Joseph Noel (1884-1927), 4th Earl of Gainsborough; to daughter, Lady Maureen Therese Josephine Noel (1917-2009), wife of Charles Walter James Dormer (1903-75), 15th Baron Dormer, and later of Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes (1912-99), who sold the site of the house in 1998 to the Landmark Trust.
Beverston Castle, Gloucestershire
One of the very few English castles to have identifiable pre-Conquest origins, Beverston was the headquarters of Earl Godwin and his sons in 1051. The visible fabric of the castle was begun shortly before 1225 by Maurice de Gaunt, and was improved in the mid-14th century for Thomas, Lord Berkeley, who provided a new gatehouse on the east and built the Berkeley Tower at the south-west angle. |
| Beverston Castle: the earliest view of the castle ruins, made by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck in 1732. |
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| Beverston Castle: an early 19th century engraving showing the castle from the south-east, with the late 17th century in the centre. |
Descent: Henry Fleetwood sold 1610 to Sir Michael Hicks (1543-1612), kt.; to widow, Elizabeth, Lady Hicks (1561-1635) for life and then to son, Sir William Hicks (1596-1680), 1st bt.; to son, Sir William Hicks (1629-1703), 2nd bt.; to son, Sir Henry Hicks (1666-1755), 3rd bt.; to son, Michael Hicks (1719-64); to second cousin once removed, Michael Hicks (later Hicks Beach) (1760-1830); to grandson, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (1809-54), 8th bt.; who sold 1842 to Capt. Robert Stayner Holford (1808-92) of Westonbirt Park; to son, Sir George Lindsay Holford (1860-1926); to kinsman, Edmund Robert Parker (1877-1951), 4th Earl of Morley, who sold 1939 to Vice-Adm. the Hon. Arthur Charles Strutt (1878-1973); sold 1959 to Maj. Arthur Laurence Rook (1921-89); to widow, Jane Rook (d. 2018); sold 2019 to Phil Kinch (b. 1975).
Ruckholt Manor House, Low Leyton, Essex
A house was in existence by 1257, known by 1284 as Ruckholt Hall; it probably stood within a circular moat which could still be traced in 1803. Henry Parvishe is said to have built a new manor house on an adjoining site, which was included in 1594 in Norden's Description of Essex among houses of note. Parvishe's house was described by Evelyn in 1659 as a melancholy old house surrounded by trees and rooks, but Pepys in 1665 thought it a 'good seat … let run to ruin'. Its condition was probably the result of Sir William's misfortunes during the Civil War and Interregnum. Sir William Hicks (1629-1703), 2nd bt., is said to have encased the house in brick and improved it in other ways, at great expense. A map of 1721 shows it standing on the south side of Temple Mills Lane (now Ruckholt Road), half-H-shaped in plan, its main axis lying north-south and the wings projecting on the east front. |
| Ruckholt Manor: the estate in 1748, from John Rocque's map of London, Westminster the country around. |
Descent: William Compton (d. 1630), 2nd Baron Compton (and later 1st Earl of Northampton) sold 1592 to Henry Parvishe (d. 1593); to widow, Elizabeth (1561-1635), later wife of Sir Michael Hicks (1543-1612); to son, Gabriel Parvishe who sold 1635 to his stepbrother, Sir William Hicks (1596-1680), 1st bt.; to son, Sir William Hicks (1629-1703), 2nd bt.; to son, Sir Henry Hicks (1666-1755), 3rd bt.; sold 1720 to Robert Knight (c.1680-1744), cashier of the South Sea Company; sold 1720 to his brother-in-law, Benjamin Collyer, who mortgaged it in 1727 to Robert Knight the younger (1702-72), later 1st Earl of Catherlough, and in 1731 was forced to part with his equity of redemption to Knight; sold 1731 to the trustees of Dorothy Glynne (d. 1744), wife of Richard Child (later Tylney) (1680-1750), 1st Earl Tylney; given to son, Richard Tylney (d. 1734), Viscount Castlemaine; to brother John Tylney (1712-84), later 2nd Earl Tylney, who sold c. 1742 to William Barton (d. 1778?); demolished c.1755-57.
By the time of the first Ordnance Survey map in 1863, three bays had been added to the north-west of the house, the entrance had been moved, and bay windows had been added to the south and east sides of the house. Lodges had been constructed on the High Road and Turpins Lane entrances to the estate, together with a series of outbuildings and stables parallel to Turpins Lane.
There was no house on the Witcombe estate suitable for the reception of a gentry family, but when the lease of a farm in the valley bottom fell in, Sir Michael decided to enlarge it into a small seat. The farm buildings which already existed, and which bore a date of 1607, were retained as service accommodation, and a new five‑bay, two‑storey block with a hipped roof and dormers was built for the family before 1704. Although the appearance of this in Kip's view would suggest it was of brick, family tradition asserts it was built of timber from the estate and plaster, and the exterior was certainly plastered later. A walled garden was made in front of the house, with a small ogee‑roofed gazebo said to have been dated 1697 (though the gazebo survives and the date is very credible, when it was repaired in 1994, no date was found on the structure), and a deer park was laid out and fenced on the hillside above the house. Through this, a steep coach road was made, leading up to Birdlip, several hundred feet above. The line of this drive can still be traced, at least in part. When the new house was finished, two bird's‑eye views of the new landscape were commissioned by the family, one of them by Adriaen van Diest.
Throughout the later 18th and 19th centuries the house suffered from neglect and a lack of maintenance, and in 1885, when the property passed to William Frederick Hicks Beach (1841-1923), he found that it was beyond repair, and pulled almost all of it down. In 1891, he built a temporary new house, which may well have been designed by a local builder. It was intended only to last a few years, but in 1905 he added a tower, and the house survived for more than a century. It consisted of a four-bay block with two wide gables to the entrance front and a continuous verandah along this side. The fake semi-timbering of the spindly tower was picked up in the applied timbering of the gables. It was not an attractive house nor one adequate to the setting it which it lies, but the interiors were comfortable enough.
Descent: sold, probably after 1612, to Elizabeth, Lady Hicks (1561-1635); to son, Sir William Hicks (1596-1680), 1st bt.; given 1679 to younger son, Sir Michael Hicks (1645-1710), kt.; to son, Howe Hicks (1689-1727); to son, Sir Howe Hicks (1722-1801), 6th bt.; to son, Sir William Hicks (1754-1834), 7th bt.; to daughter, Anne Rachel (1794-1885), wife of Sir Lambert Cromie; to kinsman, William Frederick Hicks-Beach (1841-1923); to son, Ellis Hicks-Beach (1874-1943); to son, William Whitehead Hicks-Beach MP (1907-75); to son, Mark William Hicks-Beach (1943-98); to widow, Cecilia Ruth Hicks-Beach (1939-2019); to son, Frederick David Hicks-Beach (b. 1980).
Manor House, Chigwell, Essex
The manor of Chigwell came into the possession of the Hicks family when Sir William Hicks, 1st bt., bought it from Sir Henry Wroth in 1669. Sir Henry Hicks, 3rd bt., retained the manorial rights but in 1727 sold the demesne lands of the manor and with the proceeds bought a piece of land on the edge of Hainault Forest just north of Woodford Bridge called Bowling Green, where he built himself a new house later known as the Manor House. As first built, the house was a double pile of five bays and three storeys, with a rectangular plan arranged around a central stair hall at ground and first floor. The handrail and balusters of the principal staircase suggest a date before 1740 for the earliest parts of the building. The house was approached by an avenue from the High Road and through a screen of wrought iron gates which, though altered, still survive.
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| Manor House, Chigwell: the site as shown on the 1st edn. Ordnance Survey map of 1863. |
In 1896 the house was sold to the Roman Catholic Order of the Sacred Heart, for use as a convent and a special school for visually impaired boys. The first of many additions was the construction of the chapel designed in 1910-11 by Leonard Stokes, but there were many more as the range of functions accommodated on the site grew, and today the original house is the small centre of an extensive complex of buildings. No view of the house showing it before the 19th century additions has been traced.
Descent: built for Sir Henry Hicks (1666-1755), 3rd bt.; to son, Michael Hicks (1719-64); to trustees for his blind elder brother (d. 1768) and two sisters and their descendants, of whom the survivor, Michael Burton sold 1799 to Michael Hicks-Beach (1760-1830) who obtained an Act of Parliament allowing the sale in 1800 to James Hatch (d. 1806), a malt distiller; to daughter, Caroline (1779-1838), wife of John Rutherforth Abdy (alias Hatch-Abdy) (1779-1840) of Albyns (Essex); to nephew, James Mills (d. 1884); to cousin, William John Rous (d. 1914); sold 1896 to RC Order of the Sacred Heart.
Witcombe Park, Gloucestershire
Lady Elizabeth Hicks acquired the manor of Great Witcombe in the early 17th century, when the existing owner failed to repay £2,000 that he had borrowed on the security of the property. Although her son, Sir William Hicks, had acquired the manor and castle of Beverston in 1610, the family were at this time based in Essex, and it was not until after Sir Michael Hicks (1645-1710), kt., was given the estate on his marriage in 1679 that the family required a home here.
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| Witcombe Park: detail of the Kip engraving of the estate, c.1710, showing the new house and older service wing. |
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| Witcombe Park: an early 19th century view of the entrance front of the Georgian house. The gazebo of 1697 can be seen on the right. |
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| Witcombe Park: the 'temporary house' of 1891, which survived until its replacement in 2007. The tower was added in 1905. |
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| Witcombe Park: the entrance hall, photographed c.1909. |
In 2007, the Victorian 'temporary house' was demolished and replaced by the present square three-by-three bay house, designed by Peter Yiangou Associates for the current owner. This has generally classical proportions, with a tall hipped roof and windows with glazing bars, though the classical effect is rather marred by the heavily glazed centrepiece and rather inelegant porch on the south front. The main entrance, on the north front, which is much more traditionally detailed, leads through a lobby into a tall staircase hall. To either side are drawing and dining rooms, while across the whole of the rear of the house is a kitchen that opens into a family room. Upstairs, there is a study and seven bedrooms, two of which are in the attic storey.
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| Witcombe Park: the south front of the new house, designed by Peter Yiangou Associates, 2007. Image: Peter Yiangou Associates. |
Descent: sold, probably after 1612, to Elizabeth, Lady Hicks (1561-1635); to son, Sir William Hicks (1596-1680), 1st bt.; given 1679 to younger son, Sir Michael Hicks (1645-1710), kt.; to son, Howe Hicks (1689-1727); to son, Sir Howe Hicks (1722-1801), 6th bt.; to son, Sir William Hicks (1754-1834), 7th bt.; to daughter, Anne Rachel (1794-1885), wife of Sir Lambert Cromie; to kinsman, William Frederick Hicks-Beach (1841-1923); to son, Ellis Hicks-Beach (1874-1943); to son, William Whitehead Hicks-Beach MP (1907-75); to son, Mark William Hicks-Beach (1943-98); to widow, Cecilia Ruth Hicks-Beach (1939-2019); to son, Frederick David Hicks-Beach (b. 1980).
Principal sources
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 2003, pp. 3466-68; S. Hicks Beach, A Cotswold family, 1909, passim; F.H.W. Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London: vol. 37, Northern Kensington, 1973, pp. 49-57; VCH Glos, vol. vii, 1981, p. 48; N.W. Kingsley, The country houses of Gloucestershire: vol. 1, 1500-1660, 2nd edn, 2001, pp. 62-65, 229-30; G. Noel, Sir Gerard Noel and the Noels of Chipping Campden and Exton, 2004; History of Parliament entries for Sir Michael Hicks (1534-1612), Sir Baptist Hicks (c.1551-1629), 1st Viscount Campden.
Location of archives
Hicks, Beach and Hicks Beach family, Earls St. Aldwyn: deeds, manorial records, estate and family papers, personal and political papers, c.1250-20th century [Gloucestershire Archives, D1866, D2440, D2455]; deeds and legal papers concerning London and Gloucestershire property, 1472-18th century [The National Archives, C107/78-80]; Oakley (Hants) estate papers, 16th-17th cents [Hampshire Archives]
Coat of arms
Hicks-Beach, Earls St. Aldwyn: 1st and 4th, Vairy, argent and gules, a canton azure charged with a pile or (for Beach); 2nd and 3rd, gules, a fess wavy between three fleurs-de-lys or (for Hicks).
Can you help?
- Can anyone provide a view of the house at Ruckholts prior to its demolition in 1755, or a drawing or photograph of the Manor House, Chigwell before it was swamped by the 20th century additions made for the Order of the Sacred Heart?
- Can anyone supply images of the birds-eye views of the Witcombe Park estate commissioned by the family in the early 18th century?
- 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 29 November 2021.
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