In Edward Phelips’s diaries statements of activity are recorded, often related to hunting and dining. These statements position Edward and his associates in time and place. Beyond that there is a context that can inform historians. In this case it is the information of Edward’s hunting activity in East Somerset and Wiltshire, which involved transporting his hounds from Montacute and spending a few days hunting around Stourhead. He receives an invitation to dine at Stourhead House with Richard Colt Hoare and his wife on one occasion.
Edward Phelips V (1725-1797) attended dinner at Stourhead in April 1784. It was during that brief period of marriage Richard Colt Hoare enjoyed from 1783 to 1785, before his wife died.
Edward Phelips and his son William would have driven up in a chaise or on horseback. They would have dismounted and walked up the steps of the Palladian house to the entrance door.
DIARY ENTRY for Thursday, 29th April 1784
‘Dined by invitation at Stourhead Mr & Mrs Colt Hoare Mr Webb Mr Gapper of Mere William & myself – came home to supper & bed at 10’[i]
The version Stourhead house Edward and William encountered needs to be imagined without the wings and the portico. The house was built in 1721-14 from a neo-Palladian design by the architect Colen Campbell. The wings (library to the south and picture gallery pavilions to the north) were added in 1796-1800. The tetrastyle portico, whilst planned by Colen Campbell, was not added until 1840. The central block was rebuilt 1902-06 after a fire.[ii]
In 1784 Richard Colt Hoare (b. 1758) had not succeeded to the baronetcy, which occurred in 1787.[iii] This explains why Edward Phelips refers to Mr and Mrs Colt Hoare without a title. Richard was twenty-five years of age at the time of Edward’s visit. Edward’s son William was twenty-nine.
The Other Guests: Mr Gapper & Mr Webb
There was a Mr. Gapper, a surgeon of Mere in Wiltshire, who provided a health remedy of ‘Gappers Lozenge’ for heartburn.[iv] John Gapper, a surgeon of Mere, is noted in Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s, The Modern History of South Wiltshire Vol 1, as dying on the 26th of January 1790, aged 67.[v]
Mr. Webb was from Holbrook House. He had married the widow of Sir Gerard Napier (1739-1765). In Edward Phelips’s autobiography he writes about the death of Mr. Webb in 1786:
‘On the sixth of September died Mr Webb of Holbrook who had married Lady Napier my poor nephew’s relict. He left one Son very young his Death was regretted by those who knew him.’[vi]
(Note: ‘relict’ means widow)
Holbrook House, near Wincanton in Somerset, is around 10 miles from Stourhead. When Edward and William dine at Zeals the next day, Mr. Webb is noted as being present also.
Why was Edward Phelips V at Stourhead for dinner?
Edward is in the area from Thursday, 22nd of April 1784 to Monday, 3rd May 1784.
On the 22nd of April 1784 Edward was at the Bruton Sessions. Mr. Webb, along with other local gentry was one of the justices. Edward brings his hounds over from Montacute on Friday the 23rd of April 1784 and sends them back on Sunday, 2nd May 1784 (via Charlton). The hounds may have been kept at Cucklington or at Mr. Webb’s (Holbrook House). Edward left the area for Montacute on Monday, the 3rd of May 1784.
Edward attended the dinner at Stourhead with his son, William (1755-1806). William was Edward Phelips’s second son, who goes onto inherit Montacute in 1797, as the eldest son, Edward VI, predeceases his father, dying in 1792. William went into the church, and like his father, was often out hunting.
In Edward Phelips’s autobiography he writes for the year 1779:
‘The 14th of March my son William was ordained priest by the Bishop of St. Asaph, and on the 30th I presented him to the Living of Cucklington which I had got consolidated some time before with that of Stoke & Bayford.’[vii]
Edward writes of being in Mr Hoare’s gardens when out hunting a couple of times. On Monday, 26th of April 1784, Edward’s diary entry includes:
‘Turned out a Fox ran half an hour & Killed near Willowby Lodge – Mr Colt Hoare & Lady out Windy morn’[viii]
It is not clear whether Edward means they were in the hunting party or that they were out taking the air. As Hester Colt Hoare was four months pregnant, perhaps it was just taking the air. It maybe it was this meeting that prompted the invitation to dine on Thursday, 29th of April.
In which room did they dine in Stourhead?
The Saloon today is set up with a dining table. But maybe because there was just 6 of them, the Little Dining Room was the location. Dinner in the 18th C was around four or five o’clock.
Doorway from the Hall to the Saloon
Dining Area in the Saloon
The Little Dining Room
SIR RICHARD COLT HOARE
Sir Richard Colt Hoare & his son, Henry by Samuel Woodforde
Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) married Hester Lyttlelton (1762-1785) on the 18th of August 1783. Their son, Henry, was born 17 September 1784.[ix] Hester would have been four months pregnant when Edward and William Phelips visited. Sadly, Hester died on the 22 August 1785. Colt Hoare never remarried and left to travel on an extended grand tour in Europe for six years.[x]
Henry Hoare II ‘The Magnificent’ by Michael Dahl
Richard Colt Hoare had Stourhead settled on him the previous year in 1783 by Henry ‘The Magnificent’ Hoare II (1705-1785). Henry was ‘troubled in his old age by the threat to the country and his beloved Stourhead, by Lord North’s weak wartime government, leading to ‘public calamity’ and ‘our ruin’[xi]. Henry then moved to his house, The Wilderness in Clapham, near London. He died there on the 8th of September 1785 and is buried at Stourton church.[xii]
DINNER AT ZEALS
DIARY ENTRY: Friday 30th April 1784
‘Dined at Mr Groves’s at Zeals – Mr Mrs & Mr Hugh Grove, Webb, Mr Mrs Alix, Mrs Bell William & self – home to Supper – Scadding with the Secretary of State’s letter & I wrote to the Clerke of the Peace about the Convicts – Bed at 10.’
Cucklington is around 4 miles from Zeals in southwest Wiltshire. Zeals House. The Chafyn family, who subsequently became the Chafyn-Groves acquired the property in the 1452 and it has remained in the family until 1968.[xiii]
William Chafin-Grove (c. 1731-93), of Zeals, Wilts had been educated at St John’s, Cambridge and then at Middle Temple in 1750. He was called to the bar in 1756. He was MP for Shaftesbury from1768 to 1774, and for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis from 1774 to 1781.[xiv]
SUMMARY
The diary entries provide information to analyse a context. It establishes the connections that the Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire gentry were dedicated to keeping up. In April 1784 Richard Colt Hoare was starting out in life with a new estate, new wife, and son on the way. Little did he know that the following year he would lose his wife. He would go onto channel the effects of his grief into travel and research. He became a well-respected antiquary, archaeologist, writer, artist and art collector.
APPENDIX: Diary Extracts from Thursday, 22nd of April 1784 to Monday, 3rd of May 1784
Thursday, 22nd of April 1784:
‘Dined at Bruton – Even J Donne & self went to Cucklington thro’ Mr Webbs grounds he showed us the way – we supped and went to bed at 11’[xv]
Friday, 23rd of April 1784 – Edward writes that they dined at Holbrook. He also notes that for this day that the hounds arrived from Montacute:
‘The Hounds arrived from Montacute’[xvi]
‘Even Edward came to us from theSessions – after having dined at Holbrook in his way Sir W Oglander & Lady there’[xvii]
(NOTE: Sir William Oglander is from Parnham House)
Saturday, 24th of April 1784:
‘Turned out a fox on Meer Down ran to a Coney bury In Mr Hoar’s garden & Drew him immediately – Miss Kitty Wake & a large field out. But a very Rough Windy Morning’[xviii]
Sunday, 25th of April 1784 – It appears he is staying with his son William at Cucklington for a few days:
‘Morn to Wincanton with J Donne Met Mrs Donne & my wife there & they all went onto London – I paid a morning visit at Holbrook – say Mr Webb & Lady Napier – returned to Cucklington to dinner & carried Mr Messiter son with me, who went. Home in the even soon after Tea. Bed at 10’[xix]
Monday, 26th of April 1784:
‘Dined at Mr Webbs Edward William Mr Alix & Momtague Barton played cards came home at 12 & went to bed imediately’[xx]
(NOTE: Suggests Edward is staying at Cucklington and not Holbrook.)
‘Turned out a Fox ran half an hour & Killed nearWillowby Lodge – Mr Colt Hoare & Lady out Windy morn’[xxi]
Wednesday, 28th of April 1784:
‘We Tried at Mr Hoar’s gardens in the morning before we turned the Fox’[xxii]
‘Choped in Mr Hoare’s covers…’[xxiii]
(NOTE: ‘Choped’ relates to the term in hunting where the quarry is killed without a chase.)
Saturday, 1st of May 1784:
‘Cogley Pinkwood &c: cd not run the Fox at all but Choped a Brace of Hares in Cogley came back by Mr Hoar’s Pen &c’[xxiv]
(NOTE: Cogley Wood is east of Bruton in Somerset and around 7 miles from Stourhead. Pink Wood is northeast of Bruton, around 1 mile from Cogley Wood.)
Sunday, 2nd of May 1784:
‘Sent home Ned Bool 2 Horses & the Portmanteau at noon – which prevent my Going to Church sent the hounds overnight to Charlton’[xxv]
(NOTE: Charlton may refer to Charlton Musgrove, Charlton Musgrove or Charlton Horethorne.)
Edward also writes for Sunday the 2nd of May
‘Dined William & I at Holbrook Mr Ford There & Mr Webb & Lady Napier, home in the Evening to Supper – Bed at 10’[xxvi]
Monday, 3rd of May 1784:
‘Called on Mr Boyce found (or paused) my Chaise at Sherborn Dined at Mrs Phelipps’s Rawlings my sister S Kitson & Mrs Phelipps, brough my sister home to Montacute. Bed at 10 – on the Sherborne Road near Starling I met Mr Mrs Goodford & Rhoda going to Chapmans’[xxvii]
It is difficult to interpret exactly what is happening with his hunting party and how it was organised. In the diary what is recorded doesn’t exactly lend itself to a full understanding. The Bruton Sessions would have taken some organisation with the list of people there as listed in the diary entry for Thursday, 22nd of April 1784:
Justices: Sir A Elton, Edward Phelips, J Horner, E Phelips junior, Strode, Webb, Burland, W Phelips, Doddington, Martin, W Bagley, H Coxe, Shurston.
Councell – Gould, Hobhouse, Franklin, Kirpatrick, Luttrel, Lovel, Wattson, Templman, Mogg, Hutchinson, Griffith, Mr Bragge, Mr Brown, Tudor & N Webb’[xxviii]
(NOTE: Sir A Elton would have been Sir Abraham Isaac Elton, 4th Baronet (1717-1790) of Clevedon Court, North Somerset.)
As the organisation for the Sessions would have taken some planning it appears that Edward Phelips planned with his son William and Mr Webb of Holbrook to have a hunting holiday in East Somerset and Wiltshire.
NOTES
[i] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’, A/EOH/1.
[ii] ‘Stourhead House, Historic England List Entry 1131104, (1966), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1131104?section=official-list-entry [accessed 28 September 2024].
[iii] ‘Hoare, Sir Richard Colt, BART. (1758-1838)’, 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1811, < https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Hoare,_Sir_Richard_Colt> [accessed 29 September 2024].
[iv] 9 January 1794, Bath Chronicle 205/Thu 09/01/1794 – 12:00 article: 4,b.
[v] Sir Richard Colt Hoare, BART, The Modern History of South Wiltshire Vol 1, (London: John Nichols and Son, 1822), p. 17.
[vi] S.R.O., ‘Autobiography of Edward Phelips (1725-97), c1794’, Phelips Manuscripts, Personal affairs, DD/PH/224/114.
[vii] S.R.O., ‘Autobiography of Edward Phelips (1725-97), c1794’.
[viii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[ix] Victoria Hutchings, ‘Hoare, Sir (Richard) Colt, second baronet (1758-1738)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, 21 May 2009, < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/13387> [accessed 2 October 2024].
[x] Hutchings, ‘Hoare, Sir (Richard) Colt, second baronet (1758-1738)’
[xi] Victoria Hutchings, ‘Hoare, Henry (1705-1785)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, 21 May 2009, <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37552> [accessed 29 September 2024].
[xii] Hutchings, ‘Hoare, Henry (1705-1785)’,
[xiii] Penny Churchill, ‘The ‘last grand country house in Wiltshire’ is lying empty and unloved, and seeking a saviour (with deep pockets) to bring it back to life’, Country Life, 2 December 2021, <https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/the-last-grand-country-house-in-wiltshire-is-lying-empty-and-unloved-and-seeking-a-saviour-with-deep-pockets-to-bring-it-back-to-life-235989> [accessed 3 October 2024].
[xiv] John Brooke., ‘Grove, William Chafin (c. 1731-93), of Zeals, Wilts.’’, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier,, 1964,
< http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1754-1790/member/grove-william-chafin-1731-93> [accessed 3 October 2024].
[xv] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xvi] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xvii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xviii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xix] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xx] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxi] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxiii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxiv] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxv] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxvi] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxvii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.
[xxviii] S.R.O., ‘Diary of Edward Phelips of Montacute, MP, 1784’.