A SHORT HISTORY OF BRYANSTON
What is now the parish of Bryanston was one of the
manors of Blandford listed in the Domesday Book. It was acquired by Brian de
Insula in the early 1200s and named Blandford Brian or Brianston. There is evidence of an Iron Age settlement
west of Bryanston School. Its field system is still visible on the unploughed
north facing slope opposite Old Park wood and many Romano-British burials were
found when the School was built. More recently, evidence of even older
settlements, about 2000BC, of Beaker people (early Bronze Age) have been found
in the same area.
Evidence of farming across the parish in the Middle Ages was
largely destroyed in the 1950s but can still be seen on the steeper slopes and
within woodland. Banks and ditches marking the parish boundary (probably
mediaeval) are visible in places. No traces of buildings survive from that time
although a manor house and a church (dedicated to St Martin) existed when
Bryanston was acquired by the Rogers family in 1410.
Sir Richard Rogers (1525-1607) was one of the great
Elizabethans. A lawless pirate, his talents were recognised by Queen Elizabeth 1
who put him to good use at the time of the Armada. He reported to her on Dorset’s coastal
defences and was made commander of the forces prepared to deal with any
invasion of his part of Dorset. They were trained on his Bryanston estate. The Rogers family held Bryanston for 250
years selling it together with part of Blandford to the Portmans in 1662.
A detailed map of Bryanston (Bowles Map) at the time of the
sale and engravings of the Rogers house (where Bryanston Church is now) survive.
There was another small settlement close to Blandford Bridge (where the School
gate now stands). This was destroyed in the Fire of Blandford of 1731. But the
parish population was small – considered too small in 1785 (only 19 dwellings)
to merit a priest of its own. It was decided that thereafter it should share a
Rector with Durweston.
Back in the reign of Henry VIII a Sir William Portman had
gone from Somerset to London to be Chief Justice. His wife, it is said,
suffered from a skin complaint which required her to bathe in asses’ milk. To
provide this, Sir William bought (1532) a 240 acre farm at Marylebone, then
some way out of London. By the mid 1700s it had become valuable building land
and the proceeds from its development became available to enhance the estate at
Bryanston.
Pimperne (1767) and Durweston (1771) were purchased while at
Bryanston a handsome stable block (now used by the School) and a new St Martins
Church (now known as the Portman Chapel) were built. In 1778, after the old
Rogers house had been demolished, a new Bryanston House (designed by James
Wyatt) was completed.
The old road from Blandford to Sherborne had run from
Blandford Bridge up what is now the School Drive and through to Durweston. With
the erection of the Blandford Lodge (also by Wyatt) the Portmans were able to
close off that route. They built the bridge at Durweston so that the Sherborne
Road could run the other side of the river away from their house and park. To
complete their privacy a wall was built with a new road outside (still called
New Road). The houses at Lower Bryanston,
destroyed in the 1731 Fire of Blandford, were replaced at the bottom of New
Road.
Meanwhile the farm buildings and cottages that had been close
to the old mansion were demolished and a new settlement built out of sight (now
the lower part of Bryanston village). The park was landscaped – the river being
moved and widened. There was significant tree planting which included the
massive plane trees on the River Path below the church (believed to have been
planted in 1788) and the original Walnut Avenue. The walnut trees were sold for
export to France in the 1920s – they failed to arrive and lie beneath the
English Channel off Le Havre.
Edward Portman who inherited Bryanston aged 24 in 1823 (made
Baron Portman in 1837 and Viscount in 1877) was particularly keen on
improvements in farming. He built (1840s) the massive range of farm buildings
(now Portman Mews) in the village, ingeniously digging them back into the hill
to facilitate the flow of materials downhill.
A steam engine (the base of its chimney remains) powered the barn
machinery, saw mill etc. It was replaced in the 1880s when a million gallon
reservoir was built on The Cliff (just SE of Ashwood Row but now filled in).
Water was pumped to this by pumps driven by a waterwheel (later replaced by
turbines) on The Cut – the site is still visible south of the church. The water
from the reservoir then ran back to the river as needed to drive a series of
turbines which provided power for all the estate machinery.
At the bottom of the hill a model dairy was built (1860s) –
now used as stables by Bryanston School. It included piggeries, a dairyman’s
house with rooms for making butter and cheese and a below-ground store. This
range was built of what is sometimes called “concrete cob”, a mixture of
cracked flint and cement or lime rendered over. Almost indestructible the
technique is reputed to have been developed at Bryanston.
The Portmans kept their own pack of foxhounds and these were
housed in what is now a residence (16 Walnut Avenue) until new Kennels were
built up the New Road at Shothole in the 1880s with accommodation for the hunt
staff, the huntsman himself living in what had been Shothole Farmhouse – now
Diana Lodge. Further up Walnut Avenue Old Park House was the substantial
residence for the Head Keeper together with a game larder. Other cottages for
keepers and forestry staff were built at Old Warren, Higher Barn, Broadley etc.
A small brick extension to the cottage at Broadley (now Keepers Cottage) was
built as a Mission Hall (often called The Chapel) to provide midweek services
for those living too far from the Parish Church. It may also have provided a
site where those children from the outlying cottages who were too small for the
long walk to school in Durweston could receive some rudimentary schooling.
In 1888 the 1st Lord died aged 89 and was the last
Portman to be buried in the vault of the old St Martin’s (now Portman Chapel). His
death coincided with the renewal of many of the 99 year leases on the London properties
facilitating a massive increase in income from ground rents. His heir, the 2nd
Viscount, had lived and raised his family in Knighton House at Durweston. He
declined to move into his late father’s house and had the new mansion (now
Bryanston School) built to the design of Norman Shaw. It was completed in 1894.
The old Bryanston House was then demolished and adjacent to
its site a new Bryanston Church (1898) was built using its stones. Both
churches were made redundant in the 1970s and the 1898 church was sold to
Bryanston School. The Servants Hall and Kitchen to the old house were not
demolished and in 1899 became the Reading Room before becoming the home of
Bryanston Estate Club in 1903. The Club transferred to its present premises in
the 1920s – the former electricity generating station which had been built to
light the new Mansion. The Servants Hall is now well protected as an important
site for the greater horseshoe bat (its moment of fame was a television
appearance on “Jim Will Fix It”). The Fire Station built in 1910 to house a
Shand, Mason & Co fire engine with its steam driven pump still stands
beside the Club carpark but is now derelict.
With vast revenues accruing to Lord Portman from his London
property, Stourpaine, Hammoon, most of
Shillingstone and a large part of Child Okeford were purchased to add to the
Estate in the late 19th century and a large building programme began
(recognisable from a series of standard designs in bright red brick). At
Bryanston the building of new brick dwellings began about 1895 on The Cliff and
New Road.
But the great days of the Estate were numbered. In 1919 the 2nd
Lord Portman died aged 90. His was the first of 6 deaths in 29 years which led
to a rapid series of death duty demands which even this rich estate could not
stand. After the death in 1923 of the 2nd Lord’s son and heir
(Henry), Claud the 4th Viscount closed Bryanston down. The Mansion
was shut up and the home farm was let to Captain W P Browne. In 1925 the
contents of the great Mansion were auctioned off in a sale which lasted 14
days. It then lay empty until 1927 when it was sold together with substantial
grounds and a number of cottages for £35,000 for the foundation of Bryanston
School which opened in January 1928.
Portman estates in Somerset and Dorset were gradually sold to
pay tax demands and the London Estate was reduced - though today it still
includes nearly 100 acres of London. By the Second World War only Bryanston and
Durweston villages remained in Portman ownership and on the death of the 7th
Lord Portman in 1948 a demand for duty of £7.6million led to the Government
accepting the two villages together with their farms (at a total valuation of a
mere £120,000) in part payment, ownership being passed to the Crown Estate in
1950. The woods were leased by the Crown to the Forestry Commission. Gradually
the Crown sold most of the cottages in Bryanston while retaining the farms.
These together with the Portman Hunt Kennels and the remaining cottages were
sold in 2015 to Lord Rothermere.
During World War II Bryanston Camp was built on both sides of
the road through The Cliff. Various army units came there until finally the
Signal Company of the 1st United States Infantry Division (“the Big
Red One”) occupied it in preparation for D day. Following the war the camp was
demolished although 10 huts were retained for housing until the Forum View
council estate was built in the early 1950s.
The village tried without success to acquire the camp’s
Recreation Hut for a Village Hall. Instead it leased the only building of
Bryanston Camp that now survives (next to 67 The Cliff and now used as a metal
workshop) with the intention of converting it to a Hall. That came to nothing
and it was handed back to the Crown Estate in the 1960s together with the
Parish Room (the upstairs of the old Portman Laundry now 4 Portman Mews) which
had served the village community since 1930. For many years a Post Office (at 4
Bryanston Village) and a Shop (at 10 Bryanston Village) served the parish. They
later combined at No. 4, finally closing in 2002.
In recent years Bryanston School has expanded its buildings
significantly across its campus. The development of Ashwood Row and conversion
into dwellings (Portman Mews) of the old Farm Buildings together with some
infilling has added to the village population but Bryanston has not yet
succumbed to much in the way of development. It continues to retain the
separate identity which it has had for over a thousand years.
John
Tory, 2017