South Wraxall
Encyclopedia
15th century
As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500.Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, falls to emerging Ottoman Turks, forcing Western Europeans to find a new trade route....
, located at South Wraxall
South Wraxall
South Wraxall Manor is a Grade I listed country house which dates from the early 15th century, located at South Wraxall in the English county of Wiltshire, near Bradford on Avon...
in the English
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...
county of 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...
, near Bradford on Avon
Bradford on Avon
Bradford on Avon is a town in west Wiltshire, England with a population of about 9,326. The town's canal, historic buildings, shops, pubs and restaurants make it popular with tourists....
. According to popular legend, South Wraxall was the house where the first tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
was smoked in England, by Sir Walter Long and his friend Sir Walter Raleigh (although this has also been said of other houses related to Raleigh).
The Long Family
The first known member of the Long family to own land in South Wraxall was Robert LongRobert Long (politician)
Robert Long of Draycot Cerne was an English politician.Born in Wiltshire, he was the son of Roger le Long.In 1414 Long was elected Member of Parliament for Old Sarum, and MP for Wiltshire in 1421, 1423–24, 1429–30, 1433, and again in 1442...
, a lawyer who was on the Commission of the Peace in 1426 and represented Old Sarum
Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)
Old Sarum was the most infamous of the so-called 'rotten boroughs', a parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which was effectively controlled by a single person, until it was abolished under the Reform Act 1832. The constituency was the site of what had been...
in Parliament in 1414, and Wiltshire
Wiltshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Wiltshire was a constituency of the House of Commons of England from 1290 to 1707, of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. It was represented by two Members of Parliament , elected by the bloc vote...
between 1421 and 1442. He had a house there in 1429 and a few years later he exchanged lands in Wraxall with the Abbess of Shaftesbury. He died in 1447. His great-great grandson Sir Robert Long altered the doorway to the Long chapel in 1566, having his initials and badges carved into the stone above it.
Over the generations, the Long family acquired more and more land, until eventually they owned all the property within South Wraxall that had once belonged to the Priory of Monkton Farleigh
Monkton Farleigh
Monkton Farleigh is a small village in west Wiltshire, England, 3 miles from Bradford-on-Avon, and 5 miles from the city of Bath...
. The manor was passed down through the Longs of Wraxall until it reached Walter Long
Walter Long (of South Wraxall)
Walter Long of South Wraxall, near Bradford-on-Avon, , the great-great-great grandson of Sir Walter Long of South Wraxall and Draycot was born in Wiltshire, and had inherited along with other family estates, the 15th Century South Wraxall Manor...
who died unmarried in 1807, and his unmarried sister Katherine continued to live in it till her death aged 97, in 1814. By his will it then passed to his cousins, Richard Godolphin Long
Richard Godolphin Long
Richard Godolphin Long was an English banker and Tory politician.-Background:Baptised at West Lavington, Wiltshire a month after his birth, he was the son of Richard Long and his wife Meliora, descendant of Sir John Lambe. Long was a partner in the Melksham Bank, together with his younger brother...
of Rood Ashton
Rood Ashton House
Rood Ashton House was a country house in the village of West Ashton in the English county of Wiltshire. It was once the home of the 1st Viscount Long, and during his residence it was visited by various members of the British Royal Family, including the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII.- History...
, and his brother John. It was over 150 years before another member of the Long family lived at the Manor for any length of time.
The house was first of all let from 1820-1826 to a Dr Knight who kept a school there for about forty boys. He disfigured the house by plastering over the carved ceilings and painting the oak paneled wainscots, but this was later reinstated in its original style by the 1st Viscount Long
Walter Hume Long, 1st Viscount Long
Walter Hume Long, 1st Viscount Long PC, FRS, JP , was a British Unionist politician. In a political career spanning over 40 years, he held office as President of the Board of Agriculture, President of the Local Government Board, Chief Secretary for Ireland, Secretary of State for the Colonies and...
. Lord Long's initials WHL can be seen on many properties in the village but he never lived there. Throughout the rest of the 19th century the Manor was lived in by caretakers.
The manor was retained by the family and rented after the rest of the South Wraxall estate (including the majority of property in the village) was sold on 20 May 1919. In 1935 after the death of the tenant, the house was taken over by the 2nd Viscount Long
Walter Long, 2nd Viscount Long
Walter Francis David Long, 2nd Viscount Long was a British peer.The eldest son of Brigadier General Walter Long, CMG, DSO , Long was educated at St David's School, Reigate, and later at Eton on the insistence of his mother, who had remarried in 1921 to Baron Glyn. Traditionally the Longs were...
who did further restoration work. By then the principal residence of the family at Rood Ashton had been sold. 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 Manor housed refugees from Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, and in the 1950s it was occupied by the 2nd Viscount’s sister-in-law Anne, who was married to Lord Rothermere
Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere
Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere was a British Conservative politician and press magnate.Harmsworth's father, Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, had been the financial wizard behind the creation of the Daily Mail in partnership with his brother Alfred Harmsworth,...
. (Anne later divorced Rothermere, to marry Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
).
The last member of the Long family to live at the Manor was Sara, the only daughter of the 2nd Viscount Long, and wife of Conservative MP, Charles Morrison
Charles Morrison
Sir Charles Andrew Morrison was a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom, MP for Devizes constituency from 1964 until 1992.-Background:...
. The Manor was finally sold in 1966, together with 830 acres (3.4 km²), after five hundred years of family ownership.
John Taylor (bass player with the band Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
) and his wife Gela Nash (founder of Juicy Couture
Juicy Couture
Juicy Couture is a contemporary line of both casual and dressy apparel based in Arleta, Los Angeles, California founded by Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor in 1996...
) purchased the house in 2005 and live there when Taylor's band is working in England.
See also
- Walter Long (of South Wraxall)Walter Long (of South Wraxall)Walter Long of South Wraxall, near Bradford-on-Avon, , the great-great-great grandson of Sir Walter Long of South Wraxall and Draycot was born in Wiltshire, and had inherited along with other family estates, the 15th Century South Wraxall Manor...
- Long family of Wiltshire