Hellens
| Hellens | |
| Herefordshire | |
|---|---|
 Hellens | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SO66093323 |
| Location: | 51°59’48"N, 2°29’41"W |
| Village: | Much Marcle |
| History | |
| Country house | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | Pennington-Mellor-Munthe family |
| Website: | Hellens Manor |
Hellens or Hellens Manor is a modest country house in Much Marcle in Herefordshire, close by the Gloucestershire border. It is one of the oldest attested dwellings in Britain still inhabited, primarily composed of Tudor, Jacobean, and Georgian architecture, but the foundations date from the 12th century, with some elements older still.
History
After his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror gave the manor of Much Markle to his Standard Bearer, Walter de Lacey. By 1096 the manor had been granted to the de Balun family, who became an influential family.
Hellens, or Heliun as it was then called, is first specifically mentioned in 1180, owned by de Baluns. In 1275 Sir Walter de Balun married Yseult, the sister of Lord Roger Mortimer, who was the effective ruler of England after the deposition of King Edward II. In widowhood Yseult married Sir Hugh Audley (and their effigies can be seen in the parish church). According to local records, on 26 November 1326 Roger Mortimer, his mistress, Queen Isabella, and the future King Edward III, her son, waited in the great hall at Hellens for the Great Seal of England to be delivered to them by William le Blount: King Edward II lay imprisoned in Monmouth Castle.
In 1337 Hugh Audley was created Earl of Gloucester, after his marriage to Margaret de Clare, granddaughter of King Edward I (and widow of Piers Gaveston, the king's favourite). After his death the Manor passed to his nephew, Sir James Audley, hero of the Froissart Chronicles, warrior at Crecy and Poitiers, boon companion to Edward the Black Prince, and a founding knight of the Garter.
Sir James, living and fighting in France, leased the Manor to Walter de Helyon, who passed it on to his daughter Joanna when she married Richard Walwyn. Their son bought the Lordship of the manor in about 1403, and the property remained named after his grandfather. A rare wooden effigy of Walter de Helyon is foud in Much Marcle's parish church, St Bartholomews. Helyon's descendants have resided at the manor nearly continuously since first taking occupancy.
Within the house
Hellens is a living monument to much of Britain's history. The brutality of the age of the Mortimers passed, and the internecine wars which followed it scarring the Middle Ages, and the house gathered the fruits of peace It contains numerous antiques, including books, furniture, paintings and other decorations. There are items associated with Anne Boleyn, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Charles I and II and the house's inhabitants over the ages. Among other items, a pardon for Richard Walwyn from Queen Elizabeth I is displayed.
On one of the window panes of 'Hetty Walwyn's Room', named for Mehitabel, an 18th-century occupant confined there by her mother until her death after a failed elopement, is an inscription attributed to her which reads "It is a part of virtue to abstain from what we love if it will prove our bane". this was scratched into a windowpane with a diamond ring. Local legend states that Walwyn was imprisoned for over thirty years, starting in her 20s, until she eventually committed suicide. Local tall takles insist that her ghost still haunts the room.
Gardens and grounds
The gardens follow Tudor style architecture and Jacobean patterns, and include a walled knot garden, a yew labyrinth, a Physic Garden, and a 17th-century octagonal dovecote. There is also a woodland and pond walk and an old cider mill, used every autumn at Big Apple weekend to make perry and cider. The stables contain the old Derby coach, andwhich contains family coaches, including a Derby coach. The cider mill is used for its original purpose each autumn.
There are restored 16th century tythe and wain barns, and Georgian stables now remodelled for residential use. All these buildings are used for a variety of events, and can also be rented for use as a theatre with 150 seats, as a recording venue, or for weddings or conferences for up to 100 participants.
Family history
The house continued in the Walwyn family, and when William Noble, High Sheriff of Herefordshire, married into the family he added their name to his own. The house passed to a great-nephew Edward Walwyn, and his descendant Ely married into the Cooke family. Charles Walwyn Radcliffe Cooke (1840-1911) was born at Hellens, supported another local man, Hugh Weston, to develop his cider business, became a distinguished Member of Parliament, and wrote a memoir, Four Years in Parliament with Hard Labour, which is still amusing today. In 1930 Blanche Walwyn Cooke sold the house to Lady Helena Gleichen, Queen Victoria's great-niece, friend of Axel Munthe, and a cousin to Hilda, Axel's wife, who by strange coincidence was also related to the Walwyns, the Cookes, and to the Whartons. When Helena Gleichen left Hellens, the old house finally passed, "partly by inheritance, partly by device, and partly by purchase" (as had been said of a previous owner) to Hilda Pennington Mellor Munthe.
Axel and Hilda's son Malcolm was another unsung hero of the Second World War, fighting as part of Special Operations Executiv). His book Sweet is War became a best-seller, and he spent much of his later life restoring the house, and another family property, Southside House in London, to historic showpiece condition. He wrote a history of Hellen's, which, updated and corrected, is on sale in the shop today.
The Pennington-Mellor-Munthe Charity Trust
Hellens still serves partly as a family home, but also as a centre for many cultural activities, owned and administered by the Pennington-Mellor-Munthe Charity Trust.
The Trust supports the Ledbury Poetry Festival as well as Hellens May Music where musicians of international reputation come to play, relax, and teach talented young students. The trust, and the family, support initiatives for vulnerable adolescents with their Back-to-the-Wild programmes, a Forest Schools initiative for local primary and secondary schools, and many other activities, forming a key part of the cultural life of Herefordshire.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Hellens) |
References
- Western Daily Press article from 2002