Chronicles - Gaunts House

The legacy of
Gaunts House

Glyns descend from Cilmin Troed Ddu, (Cilmin with a black leg), of Glynnlivon, Caernarvonshire, North Wales, born around 820, chief of the fourth noble tribe of Wales. Cilmin’s father Cadrod Hardd shared an illustrious pedigree with his brother King Merfyn Frych of Gwynedd and Powys. Cilmin’s grandfather Gwriad, who married Esyllt, daughter and heiress of Cynan Dindaethwy, King of the Britons, had been the last Celtic King of the Isle of Man, whence perhaps the black-leg originates, (see the legend of the Cyclops and his book of spells); himself descended directly from kings and princes of ancient Cumbria and Strathclyde, Old King Cole (Coel Hen), and Merlin the Great.

A Journey Through Time

Glyn coat of arms

Merlin, (born 361, died 447), was a Roman legate who marched across Europe with the XXth legion, found at Constantinople, and came to Wales as procurator. He married a local chieftain’s daughter while the XXth were stationed at Chester. Later in life, after many adventures and powerful positions across the then Roman empire, Merlin became Lord Protector of the Christian Commonwealth of the Britons. Merlin’s insignia bore the double-headed eagle of Constantinople, historically found on the Glyn coat of arms. [Constantinople was the center of the Eastern Roman Empire, later the Byzantine Empire].

Glyn coat of arms

A School is Born

4004BC

Cilmin had a hill-fort at Dinas Dinlle, (now partly washed away by the sea), whence he could survey his coastal lands from Caernarvon down to Yr Eifel (the Rivals), where he and his men kept watch to prevent landings by marauding pirates and Vikings. At this time and in this very area the Welsh bards collected the oldest portions of the Mabinogion. Victorian Druids traced the Cilmin/Glyn line directly back to Adam, (notionally born in 4004 BC), as the ancient laws of Wales necessitated the keeping of official records of original pedigrees. While Glyn family roots remained in North Wales until the late 19th. century, some travelled the lands between the Rivers Wye and Severn and were related by marriage to Elystan Gloddrydd, Prince of Ferlix. Rev. Ystrwyth Glyn served as diplomatic agent to Llewellyn the Great.

A School is Born

Chief Justice Glynn 1660

A move to England

A branch of the Glyns (spelled variously) were attracted to England as civil administrators after the terrible 15th Century ‘Wars of the Roses’. William Glyn, of GlynLlyvon, sheriff of Caernarvon in 1562, is mentioned in a commission of 1567 to several gentlemen in North Wales for regulating the order of bards and musicians. His son Thomas was Sheriff of Anglesey in 1584, and his son, Sir William Glynne, was MP for Oxford University in 1598. His eldest son John, underwent a turbulent career, serving King Charles 1st, being consigned to the Tower of London by Cromwell. He was so useful that Cromwell released him; then back to the Tower on the Restoration of King Charles 2nd. Released again, Charles knighted him in 1660. So happy was John Glynne to have survived, he fell off his horse at the King’s coronation after possibly a little too much celebration. He was elected MP for the City of London in 1640, and later MP for Caernarvon. John became Lord Chief Justice, (see his portrait on the stairs), and purchased the Manor of Hawarden in Flintshire. His eldest son William was created Baronet in 1662. Hawarden castle was built in 1752. The Welsh branch died out with Sir Stephen Glynne, who sired two daughters, (but no son), of whom in 1839 Catherine, the eldest, married William Gladstone, (the Whig prime-minister to-be, with whom she had 8 children), at a twin marriage at Hawarden, when her younger sister Mary married Lord George Lyttleton, (with whom she had 11 children).

Chief Justice Glynn 1660

The Birth of Gaunts House

Thursday, August 31, 2020

The Dorset Estates

The Dorset estates began to be acquired in the mid-18th Century by Sir Richard Glyn, Knight, Sheriff of the City of London, and Lord Mayor 1758/9; afterwards MP for the cities of London and Coventry, created Baronet of Ewell in Surrey; co-founder in 1753 of Vere, Glyn & Hallifax, a banking firm in Lombard Street, which by 1851 had become Glyn, Mills & Co.

Thursday, August 31, 2020

Sir Richard Carr Glyn

He was succeeded by Sir Richard Carr Glyn, also Sheriff and Lord Mayor 1798/99, MP for St. Ives, senior partner in the bank, created Baronet of Gaunts, who ‘re-built’ Gaunts House, vastly increased the Dorset estates and whose fourth son George was created Baron Wolverton, (friend of Gladstone; carried on the banking interests, founding another branch of the family). Sir Richard Carr Glyn’s fifth son, Carr John, became England’s longest ever serving Parish Priest from the rectory in Stanbridge. Thomas, his brother, (see portrait in Ballroom), was ancestor to Colonel (later Lieut. General) Richard Glyn, who commanded the central column under Lord Chelmsford in the Zulu War, and relieved Rorkes Drift after the British defeat at the battle of Isandhlwana in 1879; and to Elinor Glyn, the early 20th. century novelist, and early ‘queen’ of Hollywood.

Sir Richard Carr Glyn

Sir Richard George Glyn

The English estates, mainly in Dorset, grew through the years, other lands becoming attached in many southern counties, until the end of the Great War, when most had to be sold on the death of Sir Richard George Glyn for Lloyd George’s 98% death duties to pay for the Great War. He had ridden in the charge of the Heavy Brigade in the Crimean War, and in 1863 was one of the first Europeans to reach the Zimbabwe (Victoria) Falls after David Livingstone, (see their initials carved together on ‘The Great Tree’, beobab at Vic Falls). He was master of the Blackmore Vale for 17 years, (see paintings on the stairs). His son, Sir Richard Fitzgerald Glyn, distinguished himself in the Boer and Great Wars winning the MC and Legion d’Honeur, and becoming Sheriff of Dorset. His son, Sir Richard Hamilton Glyn, was MP for North Dorset. Glyns lived at Gaunts House until the end of the 1939/45 war.

Sir Richard George Glyn

John of Gaunt

John Of Gaunt

Gaunts was named after the remarkable Prince John of ‘Gaunt’, (born in Ghent), second extant son of King Edward 3rd and younger brother of the Black Prince, (who died in 1376, leaving his 10 year old son as King). King Edward 3rd is an ancestor of the Glyn family on the distaff side, (as is Charles 2nd). John became Duke of Lancaster, by his first marriage, for love, to Blanche, daughter of the old Duke - she died tragically of the black death - and King of Castile, by his second marriage, of convenience, to Queen Isabella whom he rescued from the Basques - she died in England of a broken heart. John fathered King Henry 4th by Blanche, and was great-great grandfather to King Henry 7th by his out-of-wedlock liaison with Katherine Swynford, (he later married her by special papal dispensation = bags of gold - his third marriage, and second for love, their eldest son Thomas being created 1st Marquess of Dorset). Thus is he known ‘Father of the British Royal Family’. Though contemporarily seen as unfortunate and suspect, John was honourable and true, a friend of Chaucer and Wiclif, (dialectic philosopher), a fine political leader and by far the most dynamic and powerful figure in Europe of his day. Prince John of Gaunt died in 1399. John of Gaunt had forty-five, fortified castles, a palace south of Wimborne, (now Canford School), and a hunting lodge close to what is now Kingston Lacy. We may imagine an early Gaunts House, (pronounced ‘Garnt’, like ‘aunt’), formerly left to Blanche of Lancaster by her sister Maud, who had died earlier of the black death, and had left the house and grounds to Blanche in her will in 1357, may have been used as a trysting house, or private rendezvous.

John of Gaunt

Gaunts House

The first known house stood here around 1300. A moat is said to have surrounded Gaunts House in medieval times. In 1535, local records mention ‘Landes named the Great Gawntz’; and in 1677, ‘Gants farme’, (possibly Woodcutts, the old home farm), which was sold to Nicholas Hookes by one John Leigh. The present mansion was built of Portland Stone around 1752, (carved into a chimney?), and largely altered in 1809 as an ‘alteration to a villa’ by Sir Richard Carr Glyn and William Evans of Wimborne. A large part of the house, running out beyond the present swimming-pool, was demolished, and a new north-eastern extension, covered in red-brick with Dutch roof-top extravagances, was added in 1899, designed by George Devey, along with the North Tower, Courtyard, Avalon, and the present stable block additions. During the second World War, the house was occupied by 10th Hussars, the Middlesex Regiment, the tank regiment, and evacuees from southern counties. After the war, a boy’s preparatory school from Dumpton in Kent had the house until it was returned to the estate in January 1988.

Gaunts Estate

Until 2017, the residual estate farmed in-hand around 1700 acres, being 1100 acres of arable – milling and export wheat, barley for malting and seed, beans and peas for protein, linseed and rape for domestic and industrial oils – plus grassland acres for a 175 cow mixed breed dairy, plus calves and heifers, a beef herd, and sheep flock. We carried ponies, donkeys, pigs, goats, chickens, ducks and turkeys at a devolving old-time riverside farm park at Honeybrook, designed to provide a countryside experience for kids and ‘townies’. In 2013, the estate invested in three anaerobic digesters (ADs) and a fourth CHP engine, at important estate sites, contracted to be working by autumn 2014. We were cheated by the AD contractors - none of the ADs worked – and simultaneously failed by managers. Coping with a disintegrating estate and increasing loan burden, the estate was obliged to sell land and property. We continue to work to reinvigorate the estate, and reduce the burden. The estate presently owns and manages c.1300 acres of farmland, around 36 dwellings, St. Kenelms church in Stanbridge, c.3 miles of River Allen, 150 acres of woodland, small quarries, local football club, sporting amenities, and so on. Archaeological excavations at High Lea have revealed a unique Neolithic Beaker temple, barrows, and Dark Age burial grounds, originating more than 4,000 years ago, and used by successive cultures.

Into the modern day

A Potted History.
Gaunts started in 1988 as an alternative adult college, growing out of the exceptional High Lea school, founded on the estate for primary-age school in 1982. Our immediate purposes were to assist parents and school teachers from far and wide, and to help people ‘see’ that the critical problems developing on the planet were found in our own honesty compromises. The ground of our work is found in a mix of ‘right education’, free spirituality, and healthy alternative opportunities, the Charter being our guide.
The community grew slowly at first, then burgeoned. Our four-stage in-house Foundation and Management Training started early on, and morphed additionally into the School for Profound Inner Learning. We opened a second centre, then a third and fourth in quick time, housing members all over the estate, and overstretching ourselves. By the time the educational charity was registered in 1995, the founder, a single-parent, had become dangerously exhausted, and obliged to take an eight month sabbatical. Just as had happened at the little school, (83 pupils), the core group, which should have been strong enough to continue, caved-in to waves of newcomers who, at Gaunts, saw the community and campus as a playground for their own fantasy-tripping, at first overwhelming then accommodating the old hands. It ended in tragedy, shattering all, and closure; re-starting shakily anew six months later, and slowly rebuilt.
What had become obvious and imperative all along was that Gaunts and its members needed a profound spiritual foundation, but that could only be ‘free’, meaning that each member needed to be helped to progress their own spirituality on which to found their lives. By association, that meant that Gaunts needed to recognise its own mores in regular and free practice. We started ‘Open Conversations’ inviting excellent people from all over to join the weeks, following sensible guidelines, which were very successful, and led to the ‘Let’s Get Britain Talking’ initiative, which developed fast before falling gut-emptying foul of its acronym – LGBT !
If the last ten years have not been easy – the charity folded after Covid – it’s been the same or worse for so many, but for fat-cats who are the problem. We have survived and produced extensive plans for a ‘Youth Initiative’ to train young people practically and philosophically to build safe and sound lives, and latterly, more imperatively, to surf the inevitably approaching planetary cataclysms; our abandoned AD is coming on stream; and we plan to implement a new ‘Food Culture’ and other sustainable whole of life interests.
Over Gaunts’ 35 years, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world have come to visit and stay for all sorts of courses and retreats; many of the world’s most notable teachers have taught here; we have saved several lives, pioneered ‘Conversations’ and ‘Summer Gatherings’ now aped by thousands around the world, and produced many books, booklets and treatises, of which 16 or so remain relevant. Downsides are that Gaunts finds itself in one of the most ‘conservative’ areas of the world; and the founder is now in his 80th year and grumpy, no longer able to offer much help managerially or instructionally. Blessedly, a couple of handfuls of Good People, most of whom have known and been a part of Gaunts for decades, remain here cheerfully, and it is to their goodwill the future of Gaunts is entrusted.