(537) Bell of Cleeve House, Seend

Bell of Sunderland and Cleeve House 

This family hailed originally from north-east England, where Robert Bell (b. c.1791) was a shipowner in Sunderland in the early 19th century, who at one time occupied Pallion Hall on the River Wear. Pallion Hall was a small early 19th century classical house with a demure three-bay front, a two-bay side elevation with tripartite windows, and a less regular garden front extended to form a service wing.

Pallion Hall, Sunderland

The house changed hands frequently in the 19th century and was eventually demolished in 1901, when shipyards were laid out in its grounds on the south bank of the Wear. Robert Bell was still living in 1851, but evidently died soon afterwards. He had a large family and one of his younger sons, William Heward Bell (1823-81) became a mining engineer in the burgeoning coal industry. He established a home at Pelton Hall near Chester-le-Street (Co. Durham), a villa which he probably purchased on his marriage to Mary Louisa, the daughter of John Nixon. Nixon was a colliery proprietor who came from the north-east but moved in about 1840 to South Wales, where he began mining and marketing high quality anthracite, which produced much less smoke when burned than other forms of coal. William became his partner although he died before the business began to generate the vast wealth that made Nixon a millionaire. Mary Louisa died young, in 1855, and Bell sent his two sons to live with Mary's unmarried sister at Cowbridge (Glam.). Although he did not sell Pelton Hall until 1869, he had apparently followed his children to South Wales by 1867, when he was married for a second time in Cardiff, going on to produce a second family.

William's eldest son and namesake, William Heward Bell (1849-1927) became a civil and mining engineer, and continued the association with the Nixon family in South Wales by working for Nixon's Navigation Colliery Co. of Mountain Ash (Glam.), eventually becoming its chairman, a position from which he retired in 1923. He was also involved in the railway industry, becoming Chairman of the Rhymney Valley Railway and later a director of the Great Western Railway. He married in 1874, and by 1883 his various employments allowed him to purchase Cleeve House, Seend (Wilts), where his children were brought up. In the 1890s and 1900s he undertook programmes of works to dramatically enlarge and remodel the house, turning it from a quietly classical villa into a vigorously Gothic manor house. When he died in 1927 he left the property to his widow, who died in 1942, after which his elder son, Lt-Col. William Cory Heward Bell (1875-1961) moved to Cleeve House. William Heward Bell's younger son was the art critic and writer Clive Bell (1881-1964), whose pacificism, snobbery and unconventional lifestyle can perhaps be seen as a revolt against the values of the world in which he was brought up.

By the time of Lt-Col. Bell's death in 1961, the Gothic style of Cleeve House was deeply unfashionable, and it may be that the next generation did not wish to live there, or felt that they could not afford to do so. At all events, the house was sold in 1962, and after a decade in which it lay more or less empty, it passed into institutional use.

Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire

Cleeve House, Seend: the garden front, showing the centre the surviving part of the original house of 1856-57.

The house was built by Wadham Locke in 1856-57 as a replacement for Rew House in the village. The new building was a hipped roof classical villa of pale limestone ashlar constructed on a greenfield site about half a mile from its predecessor. 

Cleeve House, Seend: the entrance front as rebuilt in 1897-1900 by Harold Brakspear for W.H. Bell.

After it was sold to the Bell family in 1883 the western end of the house was taken down and rebuilt and the whole entrance front remodelled by Harold Brakspear in 1897-1900 in a rather coarse Gothic manner, complete with a great hall, a porch, a low tower and a north-east service wing with a Gothic oriel. The result is about as far from the symmetry of the previous house as it possible to get, and one wonders why three bays of the original building were left unaltered on the garden side? The additions are built in dressed stone rubble with extensive ashlar dressings. The south-west wing, in a neo-Elizabethan style, is a little more successful, and was enlarged in 1905-07 to create a new library. The house has been in institutional use since the 1960s, and is now managed as a bed and breakfast establishment.

Cleeve House, Seend: the neo-Elizabethan south-west wing, as remodelled in 1905-07.

Descent: built for Wadham Locke; to sister, Frances Locke; sold 1883 to William Heward Bell (1849-1927); to widow, Hannah Bell (1850-1942) for life and then to son, William Cory Heward Bell (1875-1961); sold in 1962 by his executors; sold 1966 to Kudale Investments Ltd (which planned to turn it into a motel); sold 1973 to the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the Moonies), who converted it for use as a primary school and later as a bed and breakfast establishment.

Bell family of Cleeve House

Bell, William Heward (1823-81). Son of Robert Bell (b. c.1791; fl. 1851) of Bishopwearmouth, ship owner, and his wife Dorothy (c.1791-1843?), daughter of Benjamin Heward of Sunderland (Co. Durham), born 25 May and baptised at Bishopwearmouth, 18 June 1823. Mining engineer and colliery proprietor in south Wales, in partnership with John Nixon. He married 1st, 8 April 1847, Mary Louisa (c.1823-55), daughter of John Nixon of Barlow (Co. Durham), and 2nd, 7 November 1867 at St Mary, Cardiff (Glam.), Barbara (1833-1913), daughter of William Handcock, timber merchant, and had issue:

(1.1) William Heward Bell (1849-1927) (q.v.);

(1.2) Henry Nixon Bell (1851-88), born 3 May 1851; educated at Swansea Normal College and University of London (matriculated 1867); died 2 August and was buried at Brompton Cemetery (Middx), 4 August 1888; administration of his goods granted 13 July 1914 (estate £369);

(1.3) Mary Louisa Bell (1854-1953), born 15 November 1854; married 1st, 2 March 1876 at Holy Trinity, Paddington (Middx), Alexander McCallum Webster (1837-79), an official in the Madras Civil Service, son of George Webster, sheriff clerk of Forfarshire, and had issue one son and one daughter; married 2nd, 9 August 1887 at Dundee (Forfars.), Ernest Hensleigh Wedgwood (1839-98) and had issue one son; died aged 98 on 17 April 1953; will proved 17 August 1953 (estate £12,763);

(2.1) Frederick Handcock Bell (1868-1942), baptised at Skewen (Glam.), 21 October 1868; emigrated to Canada before 1920; married, 23 November 1897 at St James, Swansea (Glam.), Ethel Blanche (1875-1967), daughter of William Meager, and had issue two sons and three daughters; died at Vancover, British Columbia (Canada), 19 December 1942;

(2.2) Ada Gwendoline Barbara Bell (1870-1961), born 21 May and baptised at Skewen, 30 June 1870; married, Apr-Jun 1908, Wilfrid Septimus Hett (1873-1960), who became blind, son of John Hett, and had issue one daughter; died aged 91, 28 June 1961 and was buried at Gainford (Co. Durham); will proved 6 October 1961 (estate £7,137);

(2.3) Frank William Bell (1872-1951), born 4 December 1872 and baptised at Skewen, 11 January 1873; mining engineer and colliery manager; married, 7 February 1903 at St James, Cardiff (Glam.), Jessie Mabel (b. 1873), daughter of William Meager, ship builder, but had no issue; died 7 December 1951; will proved 6 February 1952 (estate £9,369);

(2.4) Charles Hartwell Llewellyn Bell (1874-1957), born 24 August 1874; coal exporter; married, 5 June 1901 at the church of the Venerable Bede, Gateshead (Co. Durham), Florence Isabel (1873-1964), daughter of George Thornton France of Gateshead, and had issue two children; died 26 June 1957; will proved 12 September 1957 (estate £30.536).

He lived at Pelton Hall, Durham, which he sold in 1869, and later at Ynis House, Llangafelach (Carms). His widow lived latterly at Gateshead (Co. Durham).

He died at Pontardawe (Glam.), 23 November 1881; administration of his goods was granted to his widow, 14 March 1882 (effects £3,231). His first wife died in Apr-Jun 1855. His widow died 5 March 1913; adminstration of her goods was granted 26 March 1913 (estate £176).

Bell, William Heward (1849-1927). Eldest son of William Heward Bell (1824-81) and his first wife, Mary Louisa, daughter of John Nixon of Barlow (Co. Durham), born 26 February 1849. After the death of his mother he and his brother were sent to live with her sister at Dynevor Cottage, Cowbridge (Glam). Civil engineer and colliery proprietor in South Wales; Chairman of Nixon's Navigation Colliery Co. (retired 1923); Chairman of Rhymney Valley Railway; Director of Great Western Railway. JP and DL for Wiltshire (Chairman of Melksham Petty Sessions); High Sheriff of Wiltshire, 1912-13; Chairman of Melksham Rural District Council. He was President of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Fellow of the Geological Society. His obituarist noted that he was widely travelled, having visited 'almost every part of the world', and he was a Freemason from 1897. He married, 3 December 1874 at St Marylebone (Middx), Hannah Taylor (1850-1942), eldest daughter of William Cory of London, and had issue:

(1) William Cory Heward Bell (1875-1961) (q.v.);

(2) Elsie Lorna Heward Bell (1877-1960), born 6 June and baptised at Shackleford (Surrey), 15 July 1877; married, 2 May 1914 at Seend, Capt. William Maxwell Acton (1878-1939), son of Col. Hampden Acton, and had issue one son and one daughter; died 11 January 1960; will proved 6 December 1960 (estate £56,553);

(3) Arthur Clive Heward Bell (1881-1964), born at East Shefford (Berks), 16 September 1881; educated at Marlborough, Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1899; BA 1902; MA 1907) and in Paris (France); journalist, author and art critic (as Clive Bell), appointed a Chevallier of the Legion d'honneur, 1936; a pacifist and a conscientious objector in the First World War, who was at first a liberal socialist in politics but gravitated to a more reactionary position before the Second World War, although he remained a supporter of appeasement and an opponent of militarism; he lived at Charleston, Firle (Sussex); married, 7 February 1907, Vanessa (1879-1961), artist, daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), kt., philosopher, historian and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography (and the sister of the novelist, Virginia Woolf), and had issue two sons; the marriage had effectively ended by 1914 although they were never formally separated or divorced; it became an open marriage in which both partners took other lovers, and they raised Vanessa's child by Duncan Grant as their daughter; died 17 September 1964; will proved 4 December 1964 (estate £47,380);

(4) Hannah Dorothy Heward Bell (1887-1941), born 17 August and baptised at Seend, 20 October 1887; married, 12 July 1923 at Seend, Henry Charles Hony (1884-1971), farmer, elder son of Charles William Hony, and had issue three daughters; died 21 November 1940; administration of her goods granted 30 June 1941 (estate £30,494).

He purchased Cleeve House, Seend in 1883 and remodelled it in 1897-1900 and 1905-07. At his death it passed to his widow for life.

He died 21 June 1927; his will was proved 15 February 1928 (estate £271,303). His widow died aged 91 on 14 February 1942.

Bell, William Cory Heward (1875-1961). Elder son of William Heward Bell (1849-1927) and his wife Hannah Taylor, eldest daughter of William Cory of London, born 21 October and baptised at St Andrew, Lambeth, London, 23 December 1875. Educated at Westminster and Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. An officer in the Royal Artillery (2nd Lt., 1895; Lt., 1898; Capt., 1901; retired 1911 but returned to regiment 1914; Maj. 1915; Lt-Col., 1919), who served in the Boer War (Queen's Medal with four clasps) and First World War (Croix de Guerre; DSO, 1917). JP for Wiltshire; High Sheriff of Wiltshire, 1932-33; County Councillor for Wiltshire, 1930-45; Conservative MP for Devizes, 1918-23. He was a freemason from 1896. He married, 17 November 1903 at St Paul, Knightsbridge (Middx), Violet Mary (1877-1950), elder daughter of Capt. James Devereux Bowley RE, and had issue:

(1) Margaret Heward Bell (1910-2000), born in Dublin, 20 January, and baptised at Seend, 24 April 1910; married, 27 February 1936, Lt-Col. Richard John Uniacke (1909-89), son of Lt-Gen. Sir Herbert Crofton Campbell Uniacke KCB KCMG (1866-1934) of Allward House, Maidenhead (Berks); died Jan-Mar 2000;

(2) Michael William Heward Bell (1911-84), born 12 December 1911 and baptised at Seend, 6 April 1912; educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; an officer in the 13th/18th Hussars (2nd Lt., 1932; Lt., 1935; Capt. 1940; Maj., 1946); married, Oct-Dec 1955, Patricia Macnamara (fl. 1984), and had issue two sons and two daughters; died 4 February 1984; will proved 20 March 1984 (estate £101,060).

He lived at Winford Manor (Som.) and later at the Old Rectory, Pewsey. He inherited Cleeve House after the death of his mother in 1942.

He died 6 February 1961; his will was proved 6 October 1961 (estate £58,697). His wife died 21 January 1950; her will was proved 18 May 1950 (estate £22,239). 

Principal sources

Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952, p. 149; obituary of W.H. Bell in Western Daily Press, 22 June 1927, p.11; P. Meadows & E. Waterson, Lost houses of County Durham, 1993, p. 45; J. Orbach, Sir N. Pevsner & B. Cherry, The buildings of England: Wiltshire, 3rd edn., 2021, p. 637;

Location of archives

No significant accumulation is known to exist.

Coat of arms

Sable, a chevron ermine between three church bells argent.

Can you help?

• Can anyone provide portraits of the people whose names appear in bold above, for whom no image is currently shown?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article 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 1 March 2023.