The Marland Family

Marland places: Orchardleigh

Today's Orchardleigh is a Somerset Estate 10 miles south of Bath, with a magnificent Victorian Stately Home, an Island Church, 18-hole Golf Course and plenty of accommodation for romantic weddings.

The present house was built in 1855-8 to the designs of T H Wyatt, using the briefly fashionable combination of Elizabethan and French styles, often described as “nouveau-riche". His client was William Duckworth, from Over Darwen in Lancashire, who had made his money by astute land purchases in Manchester financed by profitable conveyancing work; he bought this estate from the receivers of Sir Thomas Champneys, whose family claimed to have been in possession since the Norman conquest. In 1986 the last male Duckworth died without a male heir, leading to the sale of the house and the dispersal of the contents. It was only the second time the property is known to have passed, other than by inheritance, in 800 years.

Despite the Champneys' claims, their occupancy may be due to a marriage with the Merlands in the late fourteenth century. John de Merland, descendant of Sir Henry de Merland of Orchardleigh, married Joan daughter of Sir John Chamneys. The Champneys of Orchardleigh descend from her brother Sir Hugh Chamneys, but it is not clear how or when they acquired the estate.

Sources:

Burke's Landed Gentry

Richard Holder, Orchardleigh: The Problem of Saving a Victorian Country House

Betham's Baronetage, 1803

Chamneys of Orchardleigh