The English Country House and Chilton Lodge - Hungerford Virtual ...

perhaps that was the connection. Interestingly, Blomfield was also a Trustee of the Sir
John Soane Museum.
#11, 12
Starting in 1892, Blomfield made fundamental alterations to the interiors of Chilton as
well as adding a second storey to the mansion with ten maids' rooms; a most attractive
porte cochere to the east; a large bachelor wing to the west; the coach house that forms
the north wing of the stable block (in the Wrenaissance' style) and various garages and
machine shops. I suspect that it was he who ripped out every piece of Georgian
plasterwork in the house, replacing the ceilings with rather boring Victorian coving.
#13, 14, 15
Pearce was also responsible for a major investment in the water supply for the house and
the estate. The pump house on the Kennet below the house dates from 1891. Turbines
powered by the Kennet pumped water to the 40,000 gallon water tower built on the
highest point of the estate, and thence to the main house and the outlying farms. All the
water for the domestic supply at Chilton Lodge was fed through a building that acted as a
giant water softener, filled with brine tanks. To give you an idea of the extent of this civil
engineering, the water works cost Sir William £10,000, at a time when the whole estate
was valued at £80,000. We are currently upgrading the system and our engineers
constantly marvel at the quality and sophistication of the materials and workmanship
used by their Victorian predecessors.
#16
Over the next few years, Sir William made other substantial additions to the housing
stock on the estate, notably in Chilton Foliat and the dairy (now the estate office) and
lodges at the eastern and southern entrances to the park.
I have great admiration for what Pearce achieved at Chilton. Certainly, he followed the
fashion for enlarging the house, and its staff, but everything was done to a very high
standard. We know from the Fire Brigade roster for the house that there were three
footmen as well as a butler, two resident engineers, two odd job men, and two grooms, not
to mention all the maids and housekeepers, gardeners and other estate employees.
The tragedy is that, having been an MP for Plymouth (1892-5), and a JP for Berkshire and
Wiltshire, and having finally married in 1905, Sir William died in 1907 at the age of 46
and without heirs.
#17
The house and estate were offered for sale in 1908. The particulars, that put modern
estate agents' efforts to shame, show that the estate extended to 2,330 acres and had 73
separate dwellings, including 8 farms. The rent roll from the let farms produced an
annual income of £1,800!
#18, 19, 20
The estate was purchased in its entirety by The Right Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid
for their daughter Jean and her new husband, John Ward. Whitelaw Reid was the United
States Ambassador to the Court of St. James at the time, and his wife, Elizabeth, was the
daughter of DO Mills, a prominent and very successful banker who had made his pile in
Northern California. DO Mills and his two brothers were originally from Buffalo, New York
but moved west in the California Gold Rush of 1849-51. His brothers sold mining
equipment, whilst DO contented himself with running a counting house at the back of the
store. It eventually became part of the Bank of California.
John Ward was the second son of Lord Dudley, whose family fortune had originated in the
coalfields of the Midlands, and who lived in considerable style at Witley Court and at
Dudley House in London. As a younger son, John Ward's financial expectations would
have been pretty slender but, thanks to a fortuitous marriage, he and his wife managed
pretty well adding to Chilton and their estate in Scotland over the next few years, a villa
set in 40 acres at Cap Ferrat, a large flat in Paris and a house in Belgrave Square.
Together, and one imagines with the help of Jean's mother, they indulged in some serious