Minterne Magna and Minterne Parva
Clive Hannay in the upper Cerne valley
Published in May ’18
The Lady Eleanor Bridge at Minterne Gardens
‘Magna’ and ‘Parva’ mean ‘large’ and ‘little’ in Latin, but all things are relative and even Minterne Magna is a comparatively small village, with fewer than 200 inhabitants, while Minterne Parva, half a mile away, is no more than a few cottages and farm buildings. Both places have considerable charm, though, and their wider setting is stunning: the two settlements nestle in the upper Cerne valley, with wooded hills rising to the east and west.
Both villages are part of the Minterne estate, which was owned by Cerne Abbey until the Dissolution, when it became the property of Winchester College. For about 150 years, the tenants were the Churchill family, including the first Sir Winston Churchill; the then unusual Christian name was his mother’s maiden name. He was the father of the great Duke of Marlborough, victor of Blenheim, but Minterne passed to his younger son, Charles, who is buried in the parish church of St Andrew along with his sister, Ellen. The father of the first Sir Winston, John Churchill, also lies there. Other notable memorials are to members of the Napier family, Sir Nathaniel being a philanthropist who founded the almshouses in Dorchester known as Napper’s Mite, and to Henry Digby, one of Nelson’s senior captains who commanded HMS Africa at Trafalgar and who added huge amounts of prize-money to the family coffers.
The stained glass window created in memory of the 10th Baron Digby and his wife Beryl
The church is also notable for some beautiful wood carving on some of the pew-ends. A Saxon church stood on this site but was incorporated into the chancel in the 15th century. The north chapel, which contains the memorial to Sir Nathaniel Napier, was added in the early 1600s. The west tower was rebuilt in 1800 and again in 1894, when its height was increased. On its southern wall is a scratch dial for telling the time.
In 1768, Minterne was bought by Robert Digby, a member of the family that owned Sherborne Castle, and it is the seat of Lord Digby to this day. The Churchill connection was re-made when Pamela, sister of the present Lord Digby, married Randolph, son of the great wartime leader, in 1939. However, the present house dates from only 1900, when the previous building was found to be riddled with dry rot. Designed by Leonard Stokes in an apparently intentional mixture of styles, it is a house of more interest than beauty – not helped by the rather forbidding, squat, square tower that houses a water tank.
Pamela Digby’s somewhat colourful romantic adventures after her marriage to Randolph Churchill was annulled were an echo of those of one of her ancestors, Jane Digby. The daughter of Henry Digby of Trafalgar fame, she divorced her first husband, the Earl of Ellenborough, to whom she had been married when she was 17 and he was 34, and embarked on romances with, among others, Ludwig I of Bavaria and Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, by whom she had two children. She married again and had two more children, but was soon deep in an affair with a Greek count, whom she left in favour of King Otto of Greece. Finally, at the age of 46, Jane, who reputedly spoke nine languages fluently, married Sheikh Abdul Medjuel el Mezrab, who was twenty years younger than her. At last she had found someone with whom she could settle down and they were happily married for 28 years, living half the year as nomads out in the desert and half in Damascus.
Today, the Minterne villages are best known for the wonderful gardens of Minterne House, especially the collection of rhododendrons. In spring and early summer, they are indeed staggering – forget the idea of all rhododendrons being purple, as a dazzling variety of colours is on display. They are part of a Himalayan collection (the first rhododendrons came from the Himalayas and it is the national flower of Nepal), mostly brought back by intrepid field-workers such as Joseph Hooker whom previous Lords Digby sponsored. The collection includes rare varieties: only three or four examples of some of them exist in the whole world. There is an ongoing programme of hybridisation to produce interesting new varieties. Minterne sits on the narrow band of greensand that runs across the county, and greensand encourages the acidic soil so loved by rhododendrons and azaleas.
Just by the Minterne Gardens entrance, this building, with its stone mullioned leaded windows, stone walls and slate roof is an exemplar of the vernacular construction
The gardens provide interest throughout the year, not just in the rhododendron season (they are open from 11 February to 9 November, and with their cascades and banks of greenery they are perhaps the most beautiful spot in this lovely valley. The immediate landscape in which they stand was designed and created by the Robert Digby who bought Minterne. At that time, Capability Brown was advising Henry, Robert’s brother, on the creation of the park at Sherborne Castle. Whenever Robert heard that Brown was at the castle, he would just happen to ride over there to take advantage of some free advice from the great landscape designer.
A three-mile walk takes in both sides of the valley in which the Minterne villages lie. It includes a couple of climbs, but they open up views that make the effort worthwhile.
Park opposite the parish church in Minterne Magna. A path runs up the left-hand side of the patch of grass behind the parking place. Follow this, turn right at the first corner, then take the first on the left onto a footpath that shortly leads to a track. Turn left, uphill.
Continue to the top of the hill, where turn left in front of a line of trees and walk along the top edge of the field. Follow the field-edge as it bends left and right, then as it bends right again, continue straight ahead to a wide opening into the next field. Head across the field to the far left-hand corner; if it is very muddy or there are standing crops, an alternative is to turn left, then right at the first corner.
Go through a gate in the far left-hand corner and turn left on the lane beyond. Walk down to the main road. Go straight across onto a path that bends to the left and runs through the trees, parallel to the road. Reaching a lane, turn right and walk up through Minterne Parva. Where the lane peters out, continue straight ahead on an enclosed grassy track, uphill. Follow the track all the way to the top of the ridge, where turn left along a more pronounced track.
Shortly after the end of the trees on the left, go through a gate on the left and bear right across the hillside, moving gradually away from the top edge of the field. In about 150 yards, join a grassy track coming in from the left. This soon turns left, downhill, to reach the left-hand end of a belt of trees. Here go through a gate and head straight down the field to another gate.
In the next field, follow the right-hand edge down to yet another gate. The track ahead crosses the stripling Cerne on a bridge, then continues uphill and alongside the churchyard wall to emerge almost opposite where your car is parked.
www.minterne.co.uk
