Sherborne House,Gloucestershire

First Family Owner

Family group, including Mr & Mrs James Lenox Dutton. Their son, James Lenox Dutton, afterwards first Lord Sherborne and their youngest daughter, Jane Dutton who married Thomas Coke, afterwards Earl of Leicester.

This is a post I have been going to do for a long time and all that has stopped me is making the effort to scan these photos into my computer.


It's 1988 and I have driven a missionary friend to speak at a Bible study in Mississippii. Before leaving, the owner of the house and leader of the group told me that he was taking his Bible study group over to England in a few months to stay at his Father's country home there. He asked if Alan and I would like to join them for a holiday. Having consulted with Alan on the telephone we said yes.


A few months later we had the priviledge of having the group at our home for a day while they were in London seeing

Les Miserables. The following day we were meeting up with them again at the country house in The Cotswolds.


Come Monday we were driving West wondering what this house would be like and assuming it was a reasonable size as there were going to be 14 of us. When we arrived we were surprised to say the least. This is what we found.


Sherborne House from the air

The front of the house with it's church to the left ( beautiful acoustics I might add when we sang in there)

Sherborne House holds much history which would be far too complicated to go into here (I have a whole book on it) but suffice to say that this house was built on the site of a monastry and in the original Abbey Grange, Queen Elizabeth I stayed twice - in 1574 and 1592 for six days on both occasions.

Thomas Dutton was the first family owner of Sherborne

(1507-1582). Suffice to say in bringing the tale up to the present time, the last Lord Sherborne died without an heir and the estate was bought privately by 2 wealthy Americans, one of them being the Father of 'my new friend'.

The house had been turned into 19 apartments, some large and some smaller where 'my friend' let's call him John for ease of writing was able to entertain and offer English holidays to his friends and family.We had a wonderful week with our daughter and friend joining us for the last few days.

Alan on the right in the stable courtyard which was now John's Fathers personal holiday retreat.

The back yard, the Rolls Royce on the right was used to take us ladies out to dinner at a private restaurant.

The bikes we used to tour the local Cotswolds

A swim and a sauna before bed was much enjoyed

Meeting in one of the apartments for an evening Bible study

Afternoon tea in the apartment of the other owner (who actually had one wing of the house)

Real English afternoon tea with cucumber sandwiches, cakes and biscuits and tea served in a silver teapot.

The owners wife was a concert pianist and here she is playing for us

Another of the apartments with Jane and her friend (Jane on the left). They were actually staying with us in our apartment but visiting with the couple allocated this apartment. As a result of getting to know the couple during the week, Jane spent the following Summer (while on her university break) working as a Nanny for them in Mississippi.

This fireplace was one of the main features of the house and this room was originally a hall with a spiral staircase at the end leading up to another hall above, all now making a lovely and spacious apartment.

The other end of the room

The sitting room of our apartment. When we arrived the maid had been in and stocked the fridge with all sorts of goodies including a cooked chicken and a bottle of wine.

Our dining room

A book on the history of Sherborne given to us by John's Father as a parting gift.

There were empty pages where we all wrote messages to each other before leaving

And now I want to say what a small world it is. All this was 21 years ago and in that time John's parents had to sell the place due to ill health and it is now a very smart and expensive hotel/holiday complex. I was amazed a year ago to find out that one of my regular bloggers Linda had recently stayed here in an apartment that at the time belonged to a friend of hers. Linda is an American living in France who posts on some beautiful places in France, particularly Provence. Certainly a small world.