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

COLONEL THYNNE’S WAR

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

First published in the Findon News, June 2003.

Revised version published in Sussex Local in January 2010 under "Wartime Horse Patrol"

Colonel Ulric Oliver Thynne CMG CVO DSO was quite a character in Findon during the first half of the twentieth century.   

He was born in 1871 and was the fourth son of the Honourable Lord Henry Frederick Thynne and Lady Ulrica Jane St. Mauer, daughter of the 12th Duke of Somerset.  As a schoolboy, he attended Cheam and Charterhouse.  From Charterhouse he went to Sandhurst before being gazetted to the 60th Rifles in 1891. 

In 1889 he married Marjory, daughter of Edward Wormwald.  In 1909 he came to Findon when he inherited the Muntham Estate just to the north of the village.

The Colonel served in the Chitral and South African campaigns, and was awarded the DSO as Brigade Major of an Australian Bushman Brigade.  In all he was quite a figure in Findon and everyone who knew him respected him.

The late Danny Fernley of Cross Lane in Findon (being a serving soldier during the war), recalled Colonel Thynne and one day told me about him.   His memories and insider information were not always flattering and he remembered that he was not the favourite colonel in the regiment and nor the best liked.

I have also been told that during the Second World War years, the Colonel was accustomed to riding on his horse in full uniform from his mansion through Findon.   He would proceed to throw sixpenny pieces (which he kept in a pouch on his Sam Browne), to the village children who scrabbled to catch them as they fell to the ground.  It is remembered that the Colonel knew each boy and girl by name and took a great interest in the welfare of the villagers.

The Second World War was the beginning of the end for the Colonel's beloved Muntham Estate as he knew it.  His household staff was suddenly depleted to a cook, a lady’s maid, a butler and various dailies.  They struggled to keep the property on an even keel but it never managed to return to its former glory of pre-war years. 

The Colonel was in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry and I have heard that this regiment spent nearly four years away from home during the Second World War.   To remind themselves of Wiltshire they named their tanks after public houses, villages and towns from that county.  Whilst in Syria in 1943, all the tanks in the regiment were photographed displaying their names on the side.   These photographs were then sent to the pubs and parishes whose names appeared on the side of the tanks to re-establish the connection between the Wiltshire lads oversees and their local communities....

It seems that the Colonel then signed the letters being posted....

The telephone at Muntham Court was manned every day and night for emergencies during these dark times.  The family and servants had suitcases packed in readiness for a “red alert”.  It is said that Colonel Thynne had carefully buried cans of petrol in a secret location in the grounds in readiness for a hurried evacuation if the enemy landed.     They may still even be there for all I know.

Air attacks were a frequent occurrence and one of the old cellars under the mansion was converted into a pleasant sitting room.  It was used if there was a raid during one of the sewing sessions undertaken at the mansion by the village women.  (My guess is that Marjory Thynne organised the sewing parties and took charge of them).  These were conducted every week so that comforts could be made for the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry and the Royal Air Force.   As might be expected, the sessions were a good place for collecting local gossip and included tea and biscuits at the mansion into the bargain for the participants.

In total nine enemy bombs fell in the grounds of Muntham Court and windows of the mansion were shattered.   So life was not always as idyllic at Muntham as the villagers of Findon would have liked to imagine.  For instance, the mansion had a near miss and the result was a bomb crater near the house.  In later years the Colonel's son Brian had two children and they were accustomed to dropping a pebble in the crater each time they passed that way. 

There is always someone who rises to the forefront in times of crisis.  The Colonel was such a man and was the ideal person to take charge of defending Findon from the Germans.  He was an old horse artilleryman and that is why, no doubt, the local Home Defence Party, formed early in the Second World War, was commanded personally by him.  His band of men patrolled the Findon downland searching for possible infiltrating German parachutists and spies — with the Colonel on horseback and carrying a threatening spear originally intended for killing hogs!   God help any Germans he envisaged meeting on these roving sorties.  Look out Mr Hitler!

He established his Horse Patrol on the South Downs.   Volunteers from Worthing situated on the coast (four miles south of Findon) and Steyning (just to the north of Findon) and all along the South Downs were enrolled in this exercise.  It has been recalled that the Colonel took his binoculars on such trips and also a lead-tipped riding crop but otherwise he appeared to be unarmed.  I wonder if he really was that unarmed. 

The secrecy surrounding their wartime movements and activities led to much gossip and speculation by the locals as might be expected.   Even wives were unaware of what their security conscious men folk were doing when they mysteriously disappeared in the evenings for clandestine meets.

The truth was that the South Downs had been pinpointed as the second line of defence if the Hun ever occupied the coast.   A popular theory was that Colonel Thynne's band of merry men were mounted messengers strategically placed and awaiting any likely invasion of Sussex.  

It is thought that Colonel Thynne trained his volunteers to survive behind enemy lines, forming a local underground resistance group to come to the aid of Sussex in the event of a German invasion.   Could this have been a Findon Auxiliary Unit, continue to read if this was possible in ...

Continue to read Was There a Findon Home Guard Auxiliary Unit?

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — was launched by Valerie Martin in January 1999 and will grow to be a historical record of life in Findon, West Sussex, U.K.