Ferne House
Encyclopedia
Ferne House is a country house
in the parish of Donhead St. Andrew
in Wiltshire
, England
. There has been a settlement on the site since 1225 AD. The current house, known as Ferne Park and the third to occupy the site, was designed by architect Quinlan Terry
in 2001. The estate grounds straddle both Donhead St. Andrew and Berwick St. John
parishes.
Mesolithic
, Neolithic
and Bronze Age
artefacts were found in the vicinity of the house during 1988 archaeological fieldwork.
of the de Ferne family: Philip de Ferne is recorded as living there in 1225. From the Ferne family, it passed to the Brookway family, and in 1561 to William Grove of Shaftesbury
. By 1809 the house had become so dilapidated that it was demolished.
This house was remodelled some time after 1850 and assumed a square ground-plan. In 1902 the house passed out of the ownership of the Grove family, when it was sold to A. H. Charlesworth, who further enlarged it the following year.
The house was bought in 1914 by 13th Duke of Hamilton
, who also bought nearby Ashcombe House at around the same time. During World War II
the house was used as an animal sanctuary by the Duchess to enable well-off London families to evacuate their pets to safety. The house remained in the Douglas-Hamilton family’s possession until the estate was bequeathed by the Duchess to the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, for the purposes of maintaining an animal sanctuary. Nikolaus Pevsner
described this house in his 1963 edition of Wiltshire in The Buildings of England series (incorrectly ascribed by him to the parish of Berwick St John). A clause in the Duchess's will stated that it should remain as an animal sanctuary in perpetuity, but the restrictions laid down by the Duchess were so stringent that the house was unsaleable, and so was demolished in 1965.
The animal sanctuary moved to Chard
, in Somerset
, where it still operates; in 1985 the Animal Defence Trust still owned the property, including the still-standing stable block and lodges.
In 1991, the Ferne Estate was sold at an auction for £1,040,000. The buyer was Francis Dineley, a.k.a ( John Goodyere), whose Grandmother was a member of the Alexander banking family, And whose Father armed the local Home Guard during WW11. and ran the company known as Bapty & co. which supplied the guns used in such productions as the James Bond films..
Only the gate piers to the park of this second incarnation of Ferne House remain: they are Grade II listed structures.
and his wife. According to Private Eye
, despite residing here, the 4th Viscount Rothermere claims to domicile in France for tax avoidance.
In 2001 the third and present Ferne House (known as Ferne Park) was built to the design of the architect Quinlan Terry
, in Palladian style and at a reported cost of £40m. The house won the award for Best Modern Classical House from the Georgian Group
in 2003, and in 2006 permission was sought to build two additional wings. The house was featured in the November 2006 edition of Vanity Fair
.
A summerhouse in the grounds, called the New Pavilion and also designed by Quinlan Terry, won the 2008 Georgian Group award for a New Building in the Classical Tradition.
English country house
The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...
in the parish of Donhead St. Andrew
Donhead St. Andrew
Donhead St Andrew is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, east of the Dorset market town of Shaftesbury. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 430.-Local government:...
in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. There has been a settlement on the site since 1225 AD. The current house, known as Ferne Park and the third to occupy the site, was designed by architect Quinlan Terry
Quinlan Terry
Quinlan Terry is a British architect. He was educated at Bryanston School and the Architectural Association. He was a pupil of architect Raymond Erith, with whom he formed the partnership Erith & Terry....
in 2001. The estate grounds straddle both Donhead St. Andrew and Berwick St. John
Berwick St. John
Berwick St John is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. Its nearest town is Shaftesbury in Dorset, which lies approximately east from the village. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 398.-External links:*...
parishes.
Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
, Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
and Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
artefacts were found in the vicinity of the house during 1988 archaeological fieldwork.
First house
The first Ferne House was the manor houseManor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
of the de Ferne family: Philip de Ferne is recorded as living there in 1225. From the Ferne family, it passed to the Brookway family, and in 1561 to William Grove of Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury is a town in Dorset, England, situated on the A30 road near the Wiltshire border 20 miles west of Salisbury. The town is built 718 feet above sea level on the side of a chalk and greensand hill, which is part of Cranborne Chase, the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset...
. By 1809 the house had become so dilapidated that it was demolished.
Second house
The second Ferne House was built by Thomas Grove, "on an enlarged scale in the year 1811 on the site of the old structure … in an elevated situation, commanding a pleasing view of the surrounding country". An 1850 photograph of this house is reproduced in The Grove Diaries.This house was remodelled some time after 1850 and assumed a square ground-plan. In 1902 the house passed out of the ownership of the Grove family, when it was sold to A. H. Charlesworth, who further enlarged it the following year.
The house was bought in 1914 by 13th Duke of Hamilton
Alfred Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton
Lieutenant Alfred Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton and 10th Duke of Brandon TD, DL was a Scottish nobleman and sailor.-Life and Succession:...
, who also bought nearby Ashcombe House at around the same time. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the house was used as an animal sanctuary by the Duchess to enable well-off London families to evacuate their pets to safety. The house remained in the Douglas-Hamilton family’s possession until the estate was bequeathed by the Duchess to the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, for the purposes of maintaining an animal sanctuary. Nikolaus Pevsner
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...
described this house in his 1963 edition of Wiltshire in The Buildings of England series (incorrectly ascribed by him to the parish of Berwick St John). A clause in the Duchess's will stated that it should remain as an animal sanctuary in perpetuity, but the restrictions laid down by the Duchess were so stringent that the house was unsaleable, and so was demolished in 1965.
The animal sanctuary moved to Chard
Chard, Somerset
Chard is a town and civil parish in the Somerset county of England. It lies on the A30 road near the Devon border, south west of Yeovil. The parish has a population of approximately 12,000 and, at an elevation of , it is the southernmost and highest town in Somerset...
, in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, where it still operates; in 1985 the Animal Defence Trust still owned the property, including the still-standing stable block and lodges.
In 1991, the Ferne Estate was sold at an auction for £1,040,000. The buyer was Francis Dineley, a.k.a ( John Goodyere), whose Grandmother was a member of the Alexander banking family, And whose Father armed the local Home Guard during WW11. and ran the company known as Bapty & co. which supplied the guns used in such productions as the James Bond films..
Only the gate piers to the park of this second incarnation of Ferne House remain: they are Grade II listed structures.
Third house
Sometime after 1991 the estate passed into the ownership of the 4th Viscount RothermereJonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere
Harold Jonathan Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere succeeded his father as the 4th Viscount Rothermere in 1998...
and his wife. According to Private Eye
Private Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
, despite residing here, the 4th Viscount Rothermere claims to domicile in France for tax avoidance.
In 2001 the third and present Ferne House (known as Ferne Park) was built to the design of the architect Quinlan Terry
Quinlan Terry
Quinlan Terry is a British architect. He was educated at Bryanston School and the Architectural Association. He was a pupil of architect Raymond Erith, with whom he formed the partnership Erith & Terry....
, in Palladian style and at a reported cost of £40m. The house won the award for Best Modern Classical House from the Georgian Group
Georgian Group
The Georgian Group is an English and Welsh conservation organisation created to campaign for the preservation of historic buildings and planned landscapes of the 18th and early 19th centuries...
in 2003, and in 2006 permission was sought to build two additional wings. The house was featured in the November 2006 edition of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
.
A summerhouse in the grounds, called the New Pavilion and also designed by Quinlan Terry, won the 2008 Georgian Group award for a New Building in the Classical Tradition.
Reading
- Crowley, D.A., editor, 1987, A History of Wiltshire, Volume 13: South-West Wiltshire: Chalke and Dunworth Hundreds Oxford University Press for the IHR, 128, 130; ill. f.p. 16.
- Grey Cardigan [pseudonym]: Comment on Ferne House, at http://uk.mailarchive.ca/politics.misc/2006-10/12872.html
- Hawkins, Desmond, 1995, The Grove Diaries: The Rise and Fall of an English Family, 1809-1925 University of Delaware Press
- Hoare, Sir Richard Colt, 1829, The Modern History of South Wiltshire Volume 4, part 1: the Hundred of Dunworth, by James Everard, Baron Arundell and Sir R.C. Hoare. London: J.B. Nichols and Son, 55-56.
- Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus, 2002, Wiltshire in The Buildings of England series. 2nd ed. Yale University Press, 109.
- Salisbury District Council: Schedule of Planning Applications for Consideration, 31 August 2006, at http://documents.salisbury.gov.uk/council/committees/Western-Area-Committee/2006-08-31/R07-2006-08-31.pdf
- The Times Online: article from Sunday Times Property Section, 14 March 2004, at http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article1043051.ece?token=null&offset=0
- Vanity Fair magazine, November 2006.
- Watkin, David, 2006, Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry Rizzoli, p 206-217, ISBN 9-780847-828067.
External links
- http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://architecture.nd.edu/news_and_events/driehaus/images/residence_dorset.jpg&imgrefurl=http://architecture.nd.edu/news_and_events/residence.shtml&h=316&w=432&sz=42&hl=en&start=7&um=1&usg=__U8uOQ7mB0hSi1cYaEBVkhM8EH4s=&tbnid=ozGwfhtW1V_cRM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dferne%2Bhouse%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DNPage on the third house with photograph]
- Images of England page on the park gate piers, all that remain of the second house
- Image of second house on the Lost Heritage website
