Kingston Russell House

Kingston Russell House is a large mansion house and manor near Long Bredy in Dorset, England, west of Dorchester. The present house dates from the late 17th century but in 1730 was clad in a white Georgian stone facade. The house was restored in 1913, and at the same time the gardens were laid out.

Location

The house is on land which was granted to the Russell family (previously thought not ancestors of the Russell Dukes of Bedford), by an early king, probably John, King of England (reigned 1199–1216) at the end of his reign, or his son Henry III of England. Kingston Russell manor is now part of Long Bredy parish, but earlier appears to have had its own church. The main part of the manor adjoins Winterbourne Abbas to the east and Compton Valence to the north, whilst the house itself adjoins Long Bredy. It is situated in an area known for ancient tumuli and the Kingston Russell Stone Circle. The Poor Lot barrow group forms a boundary with Littlebredy and Winterbourne Abbas.

Toponymy

The ''Victoria County History of the County of Dorset'' (1908) notes that Little Bredy, of which Kingston Russell is a part, may have been the borough of ''Brydian'' in the Saxon period. It goes on to say that if Little Bredy is indeed the borough of Brydian then "It was ... important as guarding the one gap in the downs which connects south-east with south-west Dorset."

The Russell family

Kingston Russell takes the second part of its name from the Russell family who were granted the manor for their service to the King. The manor was held in-chief from the King by Grand Serjeanty, the particular service performed for the King was originally as Marshal of the Buttery, as the entry in the Book of Fees dated 1211 records for the Hundred of "Alvredesberge" (since dissolved), Dorset:

The serjeanty changed during the minority of King Henry III to the counting of the King's chessman and storing them away after a game. John Russell of Kingston Russell was a household knight of King Richard I from at the latest 1195 then also of his brother King John and then of his infant son King Henry III, of whose household he became steward. In the capacity of Household Knight he acted as part of the backbone of the king's army, as a temporary castellan, sheriff, diplomat and general trouble-shooter. He thus served as Constable of Sherborne Castle, and Governor of Corfe Castle, both in Dorset. He undertook an important diplomatic assignment in 1220 to recover Princess Joan, infant sister of Henry III, from the court of Hugh X of Lusignan to whom she had been betrothed and by whom then rejected. Russell died in 1224. He married Rose Bardolph, da. of Thomas Bardolph and widow of Henry de Pomeroy, feudal baron of the large barony of Berry Pomeroy in Devon, consisting of 32 knight's fees. The marriage to this widow of a tenant-in-chief was likely to have been a reward from the king for Russell's services, and brought Russell a life-interest in her large dower lands. John Russell was granted as a further royal mark of gratitude the marriage of one of the heiresses of James de Newmarch, feudal baron of North Cadbury, who had died in 1216 without male heir, leaving 2 infant heiresses, whose marriages became the property of the king by feudal custom. The wardship of the eldest daughter Isabelle was granted by King John to John Russell, who married her to his eldest surviving (3rd.) son Ralph, the marriage of the other daughter Hawise having been acquired by John de Bottrell/Bottreux. The Newmarch lands were thus split in half, one moiety consisting of nearly 17 knight's fees, in Gloucestershire (including Dyrham), Somerset, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire going to the Russells, with the second half, including the ''caput