Old Fonthill Abbey WILTSHIRT

eople who shoot in Wiltshire are often faced with choices of where to stay on the night preceding and often the Beckford Arms at Fonthill Gifford gets the nod, but few of them will know of the remarkable story of the family who made the Fonthill Estate their own. By the time he died in May 1844 at the age of 83, William Thomas Beckford had used an immense inheritance to invent and re-invent the estate, build gigantic architectural follys and scandalise English society.

In 1745, the Fonthill ground had been purchased by William’s father, Alderman William Beckford. Born in Jamaica to one of the island’s richest and most influential families, he was sent to Europe to be educated first at Westminster School and thereafter at Balliol College, Oxford and Leiden, where he studied medicine.

A well rounded and urbane man with a good business brain, he managed the London-based commercial branch of the family empire to good effect and served twice as Lord Mayor of London, whilst developing a growing portfolio of properties both in the City and elsewhere. This included the Fonthill Estate, which cost him £32,000 at the time and later, added to his landed collection with the acquisition of Witham Friary just