'It contained a hippopotamus, which lived in the Billiards Room': The strange country house that gave way to a crematorium
Melanie Bryan traces the history of Muntham Court and its eccentric residents.
Throughout history, Muntham Court — situated on the South Downs, four miles north of the seaside enclave of Worthing — was a place souls retired to to indulge in their hobbies.
Unusually for a large country estate, Muntham was not passed down through generations of the same family. Instead, different characters would arrive and then depart, leaving a trail of clues as to who they were when they had occupied the land. Neighbouring Cissbury Ring, Britain's second-largest Iron Age fortification, hints at the first occupants.
In the early 1950s, archaeologists working at Muntham uncovered evidence of a sizeable Iron Age settlement and a Roman-era 'village'. Fragments of even-earlier Bronze Age weapons were also found.
Yew trees border the 'lace-cap' garden, a formal space that echoed the embroidery on a 17th-century infant’s bonnet.
Throughout the years, the land was bought and sold by the Munthams (who are presumed to have built the first house on the site), the Cornwallises, the Apsleys, the Shelleys, the Gorings, the Crowes, the Middletons and the Montagues, until, in 18th century, it was purchased by William Frankland.
Frankland, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell and the rumoured inspiration for Jane Austen’s Henry Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, was, it is fair to say, eccentric.
Born in India to the then-governor of Bengal, he amassed a vast fortune in the East India Company. By the age of 40, he determined to venture west, taking three years to travel to England, sometimes (for safety, apparently) disguised as a Turkish messenger, via Baghdad, Jerusalem, Babylon, and Palmyra.
An arcade of yew, clipped to perfection.
At Muntham Court, the confirmed bachelor dedicated his latter years to scientific research and inventing. He extended the property, filling rooms with all manner of devices he invented. There were whirring textile machines, printing presses, spinning devices and electrical apparatus. And if that wasn’t enough noise, he also fashioned machines to play musical instruments and filled what space was left with timepieces, which presumably chimed on the hour.
When Frankland died in 1805, his vast collection was immediately auctioned off.
Muntham was then sold, and then sold again, until, in 1850, Harriet Thynne (nee Baring), the Dowager Countess of Bath, moved in, after ceding control of Longleat (of stately home safari fame) to her son.
The Dowager Countess recognised the estate's potential, but was far from impressed by its appearance, famously declaring that: 'The upper classes do not live in red brick!' She employed local architect Henry Woodyer who refaced the house with local flint and added Jacobean-style Dutch gables, and, later, a Bath stone extension.
Muntham Court's library and kneehole desk.
The Dowager Countess was also determined to overhaul the gardens.
Yew trees — long associated with sacred ground — were abundant so she had them fashioned into walls, walks and clipped into symmetrical shapes. She also planted a Judas tree, a species native to southern Europe and East Asia that produces vivid rosy-pink flowers every spring.
Country Life’s photographs of Muntham Court date to 1907, 15 years after the Dowager Countess had died. By then, it was in the possession of Lady Ulrica Thynne, her widowed daughter-in-law. She, in turn, passed the property to her son, Colonel Ulric Oliver Thynne.
Thynne was a much-decorated veteran of the Boer and First World Wars and, by 1922, the standard bearer of His Majesty’s Royal Bodyguard of Gentlemen-at-Arms. He was also, as was common among the gentry of the time, a keen marksman and trophy-hunter. His Muntham contained more than 50 taxidermied animals, including a hippopotamus, which lived in the Billiards Room.
Thynne and his stuffed menagerie stayed at the house until the outbreak of the Second World War when, like so many other large properties, it was requisitioned by the War Office. Unusually, after hostilities ended, he returned, living there until his death in 1957. He was buried in the grounds and the estate was put up for sale.
No attempt was made to sell the house as a home; instead, it was advertised as a possible school, hotel, convalescent home or residential development. Sadly, no one's appetite was whetted.
The house and majority of its land was eventually purchased by Worthing Council who at the time had little regard for antiquity. In 1961, Muntham Court and its gardens were flattened. It's now the site of Worthing Crematorium — where souls still go to retire.
The Judas Tree — reportedly the largest known specimen in Europe — still blossoms every year, but the hippo’s whereabouts are unknown.
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