Family affairs

The comings and goings of various generations and owners make these houses all the more fascinating

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MID January saw the launch onto the market, for the first time in almost 50 years, of imposing Georgian Purton House, with 30 acres of land at Church End, Purton, on the Gloucestershire/Wiltshire border, 14 miles south of Cirencester and five miles west of Swindon station. Selling agent Charles Elsmore-Wickens of Savills in Oxford (01865 339702) quotes a guide price of £2.75 million for the much-loved home of the Barkers, whose parents bought the house almost 50 years ago.

There has been a house of importance on the site since medieval times, when Purton was part of the vast land holdings of Malmesbury Abbey, much of which was leased to wealthy tenants. Church End stands on a limestone ridge, which provided a ready supply of good building stone and, for centuries, the rent from a substantial house called Chamberlains (later Purton House) funded the office of the abbey’s chamberlain.

Following the Dissolution in 1539, the Crown granted the manor of Purton to Sir Edmund Bridges, later 2nd Lord Chandos, who rebuilt the manor house and, in 1669, sold Chamberlains and its surrounding land to Francis Goddard. Goddard was succeeded there by his sons, Edward and Anthony, and his grandson, Richard, whose only daughter married Capt Robert Wilsonn RN. The Goddards modernised the house, laid out the grounds and created an ornamental lake from the medieval fish ponds.