THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE COLONEL REMARRIES

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000

First printed in the Findon News in November 2000.

Until the 1960s there was a large mansion known as Muntham Court standing on the site of the Worthing Crematorium to the north of Findon. The Muntham Estate was owned by Colonel Ulric Oliver Thynne.   He had enjoyed a highly successful career, as revealed in Who's Who in Worthing and District 1940....

 
A circular timber temple some 10 ft. in diameter was discovered during the Colonel's days on part of the Muntham Estate.   It was excavated in 1953-4, with many items being recovered from being deposited outside the presumed entrance. Three internal pits all contained ox skulls and other bones. There was Iron Age activity beneath the temple, although religious continuity cannot be proven.   Based upon pottery evidence, this was dated 1st/4th century A.D., but most activity was in 2nd/3rd centuries,

At the end of December 2000, Pam Stepney sent me this little story concerning the Colonel.  It may give an insight to his character —

The dinner party continued without her. With effort and difficulty she just managed to climb the ornately carved wooded staircase to her bedroom. Here she collapsed and died; she was aged 77. The Colonel was left a widower — alone in the great house, except for his dogs and the servants.

Following the funeral service, Marjory Thynne was buried at the Thynne Private Burial Ground at Muntham Clump, a secluded spot high on the Downs with a wonderful view of the surrounding Findon countryside.

Within a short period, Colonel Thynne remarried — by now he was 81 years old.  He had met Elspeth in his youth when he had been a young solicitor.  She had been born in 1871 as Eliza Small Tullis, the eldest daughter of David and Christina Tullis of Glencairn, Rutherglen, Lanarkshire.  

In 1902 she married William Beardmore (1856-1936) who was 15 years her senior and was at that time Chairman and Managing Director of William Beardmore & Co., Engineers and Shipbuilders.  Her father was Director of the St. Ann's Leatherworks, Bridgeton and William had been elected to that Board some four years earlier.  About the time of the marriage, William purchased Flichty House in Invernesshire with its 3,000 acre sporting estate.   He extended and improved the estate which became the couple's principle home.  He also leased Tullichewan House in Alexandria, Dumbartonshire as a west of Scotland resident.

The couple both met Ernest (later Sir Ernest) Shackleton (1874-1922) in Edinburgh in 1905, not long after the latter's return from the Antarctic where he had taken part as a junior officer in the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901 to 1904. In 1906 Shackleton entered Beardmore's employment at Parkhead, Glasgow.

With Eliza's encouragement, Shackleton planned his own British Antarctic Expedition in the Nimrod in 1907.   He chose to tackle the challenge of Antarctica in a different way. He decided he would attempt to journey across the icy continent from one side to the other via the South Pole.  He travelled south again in the Endurance as leader of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914 to 1917.

William was created a Baronet in 1914 and elevated to Baron Invarnairn in 1921.  At this point, Eliza now became known as Elspeth, Lady Invernairn.   She and William had no children. 

On 9th April 1936, William died at Flichty of heart failure and everything was left to Elspeth.   Conveniently, she was the widow of the first Baron Invernairn when Colonel Thynne came on the scene again. Their wedding took place in Scotland in 1952 and new wife persuaded him to live north of the border.

There is an interesting little story attached to Elspeth, Colonel Thynne's second wife.   Back in 1907, her first husband, William Beardmore, had backed Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica.   In 2000 a collection of love letters exchanged been Shackleton and our Elspeth were seen for the first time.   The National Maritime Museum received the letters in 1958 from Elspeth's lady in waiting with the instructions to not open them until 18th September 2000.   How intriguing.  I wonder if Colonel Thynne knew about all of this.

While Colonel Thynne was in Scotland with Elspeth, Muntham Court was completely shut up for long periods at a stretch. By 1955, Elspeth had also died. The Colonel thankfully returned  south to Findon to live alone at Muntham Court with his memories.   He died two years later at the age of eighty-six on Monday 30th September 1957.  He was buried at Muntham on a hill close to Muntham Court in the family burial ground described in the Worthing Herald in 1963.....

One of the Colonel's last acts of public service to Findon was to offer a four-acre site as a playing field for the youth of the village. Unfortunately, planning permission was refused on the grounds that access to the ground was across the busy Findon bypass on the A24, which was considered too dangerous — even in those days.

Continue if you would like to read about a blonde-bombshell in She Nearly Lived in Findon — Diana Dors

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This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.