The pen is mightier than dynamite: A truly unique 20th-century building destroyed by the wrong paperwork
What happens when you accidentally knock down the wrong Fonthill House.
War, neglect, fire and/or insufficient means were generally the main reasons why thousands of Britain’s architectural masterpieces were destroyed in the 20th century. But one former house in Wiltshire has the dubious double distinction of being one of the last great houses in the country to be deliberately destroyed, and for that destruction to have been due to the wrong paperwork.
By the 18th century, the Fonthill estate in Wiltshire was vast. The land had a centuries-long history of demolishing grand structures when they had been determined to have reached their sell-by date. Indeed, four large properties on the sprawling lands had been erected by the then-landowners, the Beckfords, then eviscerated over the centuries.
By 1897, half of the estate was owned by the art collector Alfred Morrison, the second son of a wealthy Edinburgh textile merchant. Alfred died at the end of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee year, leaving Fonthill House to his wife, Mabel. Probate records reveal he also left a staggering £869,174 12s 6d (comfortably over £100million in 2026) to his brothers, Charles and Walter Morrison. His oldest son, Hugh, received a generous allowance, and the rest of the Fonthill land on which to build his own home.
The South Front of the charming house.
Hugh determined to build high (ish) on a lesser wave of rolling Wiltshire chalkland opposite the old drove road of Great Ridge. Little Ridge house was to become a truly unique, 20th century building. For a start, it wasn’t a new build at all.
Architect and stonemason Detmar Blow had traveled to nearby Salisbury Plain in 1901 to advise on repairs to Stonehenge — a severe storm had blown over two of the great monument’s stones on New Year’s Eve, 1900. Hugh, in search of an architect, is presumed to have met Blow at the neolithic wonder, found a meeting of minds with the disciple of the Arts-and-Crafts movement, and the pair, along with Hugh’s wife, Mary, set about designing their new home. (As an aside, Stonehenge wasn’t reconstructed until 1958, but that, as they say, is a story for another day).
At the heart of Blow’s ‘new build’ was a grand, 17th century manor house from the neighbouring village of Berwick St Leonard. The aging property had reportedly been reduced to being used as a barn by the 19th century. By the birth of the 1900s, when Blow and Hugh conspired to save it, it stood roofless and forlorn.
The original house, with Blow’s nursery wing projecting out on the right hand side.
The remains were dismantled and documented stone by stone. Cosseted in straw, they were painstakingly transported three miles down the road by traction engine for reassembly on Fonthill land.
The manor house formed the historic skeleton of Little Ridge, with Blow and his team of local craftsmen providing abundant, ample flesh around the aging bones. Plaster, wood and stone decoration and embellishments inside the home were all hand-crafted by artisans. The result was a masterclass in traditional methods.
The Country Life feature of 1912, from which the accompanying photos to this article were first published, was most effusive with its praise for this formidable piece of recycling. ‘No one knows better than Mr Blow the difficulty of wedding the airy spirit of three centuries ago to the sturdy need today, and no one has learnt to overcome it more successfully.’
Soon after the new/old house was finished, Hugh and Mary, who had been trying to conceive for many years, finally received the happy news they were to become parents. They immediately called Blow back, who swiftly designed (the designs were charmingly called ‘The John Wing’) and built a connecting nursery wing on the property. During this time, baby John was born.
In 1915, a fire broke out in Fonthill House, the property owned by Hugh’s mother, Mabel. While the local fire brigade were successful in saving the main house, the servants quarters were wrecked and the main house damaged by the necessity of fire equipment hurriedly being pulled through the rooms. It stood empty.
Mabel had long since moved away to London. Hugh and Mary had their own house, so the decision was eventually taken in 1921 to demolish Fonthill House. And here is where the fatal mistake was made in some local paperwork.
Following the demolition of Fonthill House in 1921, Little Ridge was renamed. It was renamed Fonthill House. Fast forward to the late 1960s and a very changed Britain. Struggling under the burden of an array of crippling taxation measures, falling yields, raging inflation and other joyless woes, John, now Baron Margadale of Islay, took the decision to demolish his parent’s large and costly incarnation of Fonthill House and erect a more modest property on the little ridge of land.
Little Ridge sitting pretty. Within a few years of the photograph being taken, the property’s name would be changed to Fonthill House.
Destruction of the unique house should, however, by this time never have been allowed. A swift check by local officials presumed it was the property damaged by fire in 1915. Lord Margadale was told he wouldn’t need planning permission to tear the house down. The demolition contractors were called in.
The Victorian Society, realising the error, mounted a swift campaign to stop the demolition. They pleaded with the Department of the Environment to issue an emergency spot-listing to protect the house. It fell on deaf ears when they, too, presumed the house to be the fire-damaged property from 1915. By the time the error was uncovered, it was too late. Like the stones at Stonehenge that New Year’s Eve in 1900, Little Ridge had fallen.
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