Garden Open at Fonthill House,
Fonthill Bishop, SP3 5RZ
on
Sunday 3rd June 2018
12 noon to 5.00 p.m.
Refreshments, Beckford Bottle Shop Bar,
Tombola, Home Produce,
Origami cards made by prisoners.
Bird Boxes made by prisoners.
Prisoners’ Art Exhibition.
Admission £6 per person or £12 per car
(three people or more)
Children under 12 free of charge.
Restricted wheelchair access.
Well behaved dogs on leads welcome.
Proceeds in aid of The Friends Of Erlestoke Prison.
From Doorstep Walks, No.6 The Weaveland Farm Walk, published jointly by Wiltshire Health Promotion Service and Salisbury District Council, 1999:
Beckford Abbey Woods. Here William Beckford, an eccentric 18th century millionaire, constructed a Gothic Abbey of huge proportions. However, it collapsed within a short time in 1825.
From the Visitors’ Guide To Wiltshire, circa 1973:
In the woods of the Fonthill Abbey Estate stand the ruins of Fonthill Abbey (built by William Beckford). The massive tower thereof fell in 1825. The stone of the remaining tower is bonded with ferrous metal which is continually rusting and breaking up the masonry.
Part of the estate is now owned by Lord Margadale of Islay, but Mr. Neil Rimmington, a descendant of the Shaw-Stewart family, who resides at the Old Abbey, still retains a large portion of the original estate.
Some of the trees planted in Beckford’s time still survive but many have been felled to make way for younger plantations.
The grounds of the Old Abbey are not open to the public.
The roads hereabout are twisty and narrow but yield up unexpected and interesting sights to the traveller.
From Chicklade And Pertwood, A Short Parish History, by E.R. Barty, M.A., Chicklade, Old Rectory, first published December 1955:
FONTHILL
(From The Successive Houses of Fonthill, Lt.-Col. H.F. Chettle. W.A.M. no. CLXXVI.)
In 1631 the estates were forfeited. Fonthill Gifford was bought by Sir Francis Cottington, Ambassador and Statesman. It is not known whether the house he rebuilt was Sir John Mervyn’s Fonthill I., or another. The Arch and lodge at Fonthill Bishop and the gate opposite the Beckford Arms were built for him and the stream was embanked to form the lake.
Fonthill II. remained in the hands of the Cottington family for 80 years. It was then purchased by William Beckford I. (c.1709) – a descendant of the Mervyns, and the son of a wealthy planter in Jamaica. He became M.P. for the City of London (1743-1776) and Lord Mayor (1762-1770). He died in 1770. Fonthill II. was so improved by Alderman Beckford as to become a new mansion (Fonthill III.).
In 1755 the greater part of Fonthill III. was burned down. Beckford promptly rebuilt Fonthill IV., called by Colt Hoare “Fonthill Splendens†and the grounds also were laid out on a lavish scale.
At Fonthill IV. William Beckford II., the Eccentric, was born in 1760. He, it was who chose a site on Hinckley Hill, S.W. of Fonthill IV., and on it built Fonthill Abbey. Here, in December, 1800, came Lord Nelson with Lord and Lady Hamilton. The visitors stayed at Fonthill House but the theatricals to which Lady Hamilton contributed took place at Fonthill Abbey.
Later Fonthill IV. was demolished and Beckford II. lived at the Abbey (1801-1822). “His neighbours avoided him, his visitors were few and an air of mystery enveloped the place . . . â€
At last, in 1821, owing to financial losses, he decided to leave the Abbey. The property was sold to John Farquhar and Beckford went to live at Lansdowne House in Bath.
A few years later the property again changed hands. There was now no Fonthill House and the way was clear for the houses of George Mortimer and Alfred Morrison on the old site, the flat ground near the lake, for the Marquis of Westminster’s near the Abbey and for the house of Hugh Morrison on Little Ridge.
Geoffrey Grigson in A Gazetteer To Wessex, in the book About Britain No.2, Wessex, A New Guide Book With A Portrait By Geoffrey Grigson, published by Collins in 1951, noted:
Fonthill Bishop, Wiltshire. Celebrated as the place where the millionaire William Beckford built his neo-Gothic abbey, the tower of which crashed. Little of the abbey remains. The road, however, from Fonthill Gifford runs under a great arch along the lake made by Beckford’s father. Woods and lakes are exquisite. Careful search (enquire locally) will discover the Hermitage and Hermit’s Cave made by Beckford on one side of the lake, and his grotto and the caves of the Alpine Garden on the east side. 15 miles west of Salisbury.
Hutchinson’s Pocket Guide for Hampshire and the Isle Of Wight, Wiltshire and Dorset, published in 1939, mentions:
Fonthill Abbey, a few miles to the north between Tisbury and Hindon, was built by William Beckford about 1796, at a cost of over £250,000. Later he disposed of the property to the second Marquis of Westminster, who erected a second house on the same site.
From The Warminster Herald, Saturday 29 October 1881:
In dragging the lake at Fonthill the number of fish caught was as follows: On Monday, 2,046; Tuesday, 1,000; Wednesday, 3,430; total, 6,466. The fish weighed 1 ton 6 cwt. 1 qr. 24 lbs., and were all roach and perch. They were given away to the labourers and any who applied for them.
