In 1949, there was a Centenary Luncheon, attended by the great and good. This time, many more of the Harrod descendants were invited, including my grandmother, Beatrice Martha. The information and documents for this event come from the Harrod family and their descendants.
To illustrate the paperwork, mock-ups of the original 1849 shop were constructed and artist’s impressions of the shop reproduced on postcards. They were what they say, impressions giving a rather glossy image of a shop which was, certainly initially, rather more basic at the time. A report in the Daily Mail covering the celebrations stated that originally the shop had a 30–40ft frontage, it employed two assistants, and the turnover was about £20 a week.
A splendid photograph of Beatrice Martha, together with her daughter, Bridget, was taken in the mock ‘back parlour’, with an actor playing Charles Henry, her grandfather and my great-great-grandfather. It is probably the best photograph I have of my grandmother.
The Harrod family members invited to the Centenary Luncheon on 2 May 1949 were the following: Beatrice Martha and daughter Bridget; Frank Henry Harrod, a son of Henry Digby Harrod; five members of the Conder family, Eustace Reynolds (Rennie) Conder, then aged 91 and rather frail, John Reynolds (Jack) Conder and his second wife Eileen, Margery Caroline Morfey and Katherine Emily Conder. Fanny Elizabeth (née Harrod), Rennie’s wife is on the list as ‘Mrs Reynolds Conder’, but had actually died seven weeks earlier, after the lists had been produced; two Weightmans, John Walter Weightman and Mrs Mary Dolleymore, respectively the son and daughter of Amy Caroline Harrod; and two Rodgers, Eva Margarita (née Harrod) and husband, Dr Frederick Millar Rodgers.
The menu that I have had access to was illustrated with the artist’s impression of the store in 1849 on the frontispiece. On the back page, many members of the Harrod family group had signed this particular copy. Apart from the above, the signatures also included that of Digby Milward Weightman, the eldest son of Amy Caroline Harrod, who is not listed on the guest list but was obviously present as a replacement for Fanny Elizabeth.
On 2 April 1891, Richard Burbidge took over the reins at Harrods. At long last, Charles Digby Harrod could leave his beloved shop in safe hands and take a well-deserved retirement.
The 1891 census, taken on 5 April, shows that three days after the official takeover Charles Digby Harrod was at Allerford House in Somerset, with his wife, Caroline. They were both 50 years old. With them were two of their daughters, Amy Caroline, then aged 16, and Beatrice Martha, my grandmother, aged 13 years. The two eldest daughters, Fanny and Grace, were married and living with their families in south London. Henry Herbert, their only son, was a student at Cambridge but was staying on this day in Croydon with his sister Fanny. Of the other three daughters, Emily Maud, aged 22, was obviously acting as the ‘babysitter’ for the two remaining daughters, Olive Mary, aged 10 years, and Eva Marguerite, aged 9. They were staying in the house in Evelyn Gardens with just the six servants – I guess the house remained fully staffed in case the whole family needed to stay. All the servants were single women, aged between 20 and 36 years old.
Rather surprisingly, also present in Allerford House that day with the family were Charles Digby’s nieces, Edith Caroline Elizabeth Harrod, aged 17 years, and Kate Emily Harrod, aged 16 years, the two eldest daughters of Charles’s brother, Henry Digby.
I say surprisingly for two reasons. Firstly, with all that was going on in 1891, the retirement and the move from London, the family probably had enough to keep them busy without visitors. However, no doubt the cousins would have been good company for each other. It is likely that the rest of the family were already in Allerford when Charles Digby arrived back from London after his handover to Burbidge, and there were three servants at Allerford to help the family: a cook, a parlour maid and a nurse maid. Secondly, despite what in times past had been a difficult relationship between their fathers, the cousins had remained good friends. Henry Digby and the rest of his family were at home in Chiswick in the 1891 census.
Charles Digby had not moved to north Somerset to settle down at Allerford. This would prove to be just a stepping stone to finding a more permanent and prestigious residence. It looks as though he might have already found a suitable place, and was using Allerford as a base in the area whilst work was done elsewhere. On 10 August 1891 he bought a large country house in Morebath, north Devon, quite close to the Somerset border and a few miles to the south of Allerford.
When Charles Digby purchased Morebath House it was owned by the Bere family, who had been in continuous occupation for 230 years. The parish records give the purchase price as £37,000. Using relative price calculators, this would have been the equivalent of about £3 million today.
The Morebath parish records show that on 7 January that year, there was a village entertainment for Mrs Bere and her family. The locals sang a ‘Parting Song’, to the tune of ‘God that madest Earth and Heaven’ (Hymns, Ancient and Modern). Sadly, no record of the words remains. The census for Morebath House, taken in April 1891, shows in residence only the gardener and his wife, perhaps acting as caretakers, and their two daughters aged 10 and 23, so the Bere family seem to have left by then.
Morebath is on the southern border of Exmoor in sheep farming country. According to ‘Parishes: Maker – Musbury’,Magna Britannia, Volume 6: Devonshire (1822):
Morebath was in the hundred of Bampton and in the deanery of Tiverton, it lies about two miles from Bampton, and nine from Tiverton. The manor of Morebath was in the crown at the time of taking the Domesday survey [1086]: Warin de Bassingbourn gave it to the abbey of Berlinch or Barlynch. After the Reformation it was granted, with other possessions of that monastery to Sir John Wallop, by whose family it was sold, in 1658, to Thomas Bere, Esq., of Huntsham. It is now the property of his descendant Montagu Baker Bere, Esq. The old manor-house is dilapidated.
It was dilapidated in 1822, so heaven knows how bad it would have been in 1891.
Kelly’s Directory of 1893 tells us more about the village. It had a population of between 300 and 400. St George’s Church in Morebath had been restored in 1874 at a cost of nearly £2,500, and had several windows dedicated to members of the Bere family. It had a station on the Devon and Somerset branch of the Great Western Railway, which had opened in 1873 (and of course is now closed).
The branch to Morebath was completed in 1884. I suspect that the rail connection may have played a part in Charles Digby’s choice of property. It was 180 miles from London, albeit by a rather convoluted route. A branch to link the Exeter line to Tiverton in Devon meant that a second station was needed, and Morebath Junction Halt was built. It had a more frequent service than at Morebath Station and the halt was much nearer the village, but could be reached only by an often muddy footpath across fields.
Railway mythology recounts that in 1890 the GWR appointed a Mrs Town as signalwoman at Morebath Junction, and she was said to be the only recorded example of a signalwoman on any railway in Britain in the nineteenth century. This fact was linked to the statement that the traffic was relatively light, as there were only fourteen trains per day! An assiduous researcher of railway history called Helena Wojtczak investigated this lady thoroughly, so wanting her to be the first lady signalman. Despite examining many articles in railway magazines and entries on line, she was unable to find Mrs Town anywhere in the historical records. She eventually found an entry and details. Mr Down had been the ‘gatekeeper’ at Lodfins Crossing, just south of Morebath. He died in 1886, leaving her with six young children and potentially no home and no income. In an act of generosity, GWR allowed his widow, Sarah, to take over the role. There is still argument as to whether her tiny house next to the line was actually a signal box. Thanks to Mr Beeching, the nearest railway station is now Taunton.
Morebath House, as it was called originally, lies less than a mile to the north-east of the village, off the present B3190. It was in a poor state when Charles Digby bought it, and whilst he and the family lived in Allerford, he demolished t
he house and built another, calling it Morebath Manor. The house came with a 2,000-acre estate containing a number of farms. Charles Digby brought 100 workmen from London and they worked there for two years. No expense was spared and the finish was superb.
Whenever the question is asked about what happened to the Harrod money, it is probable that quite a lot of it went on Morebath Manor. The building cost was about £10,000, which in addition to the purchase price would account for £47,000 of the £120,000 received from the sale of Harrods.
It was not until 1893 that Charles Digby and the family moved into Morebath Manor, almost two years to the day after the date of purchase. The parish records state that on 6 August that year the bells were rung to welcome them into residence at Morebath. In the 1893 Kelly’s Directory, Morebath Manor was listed as the residence of ‘Charles D. Harrod, Esq.’, and he is named as lord of the manor, a title which presumably came with the property.
The house was apparently splendid. There are several first-hand accounts of the house in recent times. There is an account by my Uncle Michael, who visited with his wife, Anna, in 1989; a visit by my brother Peter a few years later; a very glossy sales brochure produced by Knight Frank in 2003 and passed on by Harrods’ archives; and my own visit in 2004.
When Michael visited, the house was in the hands of twin brothers called Handy. After failing to gain admission on turning up at the house, they were able to make telephone contact and arrange an appointment for tea the following day. The Handy brothers were very pleased to have made contact with a relation of the Harrods. Michael’s own words give the best description of the event:
The large manor house was on the side of the hill with huge wrought iron gates at the beginning of a long drive … The nearer we got the more spooky it became. One of the reasons for this was probably due to the fact that all the windows had long, and rather unkempt, lace curtains hanging. It is an absolutely fascinating place and apart from internal decorations it is exactly as Charles Digby left it. The brothers collect antiques of all sorts and the total value in the house amounts to a very large sum of money. Hence the ever drawn lace curtains and no visitors without an appointment … The rooms are magnificent, the billiard room still having the billiard table made for Charles Digby. The entrance hall and staircase are very impressive, the staircase having been made from mahogany especially imported for my grandfather.
Dennis Handy told Michael he was writing a history of the house and would send on a copy, but this never arrived. He had some odd ideas about Harrod genealogy. He told Michael that his grandfather’s grandfather (William Harrod) was either a Russian or Polish Jew who came to England, bought a small shop in the Mile End Road, East London, and sold tea. His source for this information was apparently a Penguin paperback, name unknown. Well, it is an interesting theory, but there is no evidence to back it up and the book has never been traced. Michael was given a postcard sketch of the house complete with peacock.
Jean Pitt, the Conder relative quoted earlier, has sent me copies of family photographs of Morebath in its heyday, which are splendid and show the interior soon after the reconstruction, members of the family at the front of the house and various scenes from the grounds. The interior photographs reveal the heavy furniture and distinctive décor of the late Victorian era. Morebath Manor became a listed building in the mid 1980s.
Country life of August 1967 shows the house and estate up for sale or auction via Knight, Frank and Rutley. No price is stated, but the estate at that time had reduced to 8,442 acres.
In 1994, Harrods archivist Nadene Hansen was approached by Clive and Christine Miller of Bognor Regis, who were prospective purchasers of Morebath Manor. They asked for a search of the archives for information that might help them restore the house, including plans, a biography of Charles Digby, paintings or photographs. They requested a loan of ‘artefacts or miscellanea’ to allow them to stage a permanent public exhibition. They also asked if Harrods would be prepared to support the project with grant aid! Nadene replied to them with some details of the family and history of the store. She passed the letter on to me in case we might want to help.
Whether they went ahead with the purchase is not known, but by 2003 the house was on the market in a very well-restored state. A brief description in the Knight Frank brochure describes the house as Grade II listed, with a commanding elevated position, ten bedrooms, nine bathrooms, including a self-contained flat and two-bedroom cottage, stables and outbuildings, gardens and land of 21 acres. The house was bought the following year by actress and comedian Caroline Quentin.
Somewhere between Charles Digby’s occupation and this sale the estate had reduced from 2,000 acres to 21 acres! All of the associated farms had been sold off along the way, and the only trace found of these sales is a document in the National Archives, which lists three farms and several cottages being sold off in 1963 from the ‘Outlying Portion of the Morebath Manor Estate’ by Jackson Stops. It would seem that much of the estate remained intact for some years, being sold to finance restoration.
The beautiful photographs in the brochure bear comparison to the Victorian ones, only they are in colour. The quality of the fittings and décor is superb. The billiard table is still the original one. The plan shows that there are three floors and a cellar. The kitchen area includes a butler’s pantry, scullery, laundry room, boot room, larder, housekeeper’s room and gun room. The brochure price then was £2 million, but it may have sold for more in those heady pre-crash days.
Jean Pitt, one of Fanny Elizabeth’s granddaughters, wrote in a 1989 letter:
He [Charles Digby] also had a holiday home at Allerford, the one that shows in all the pictures of the Packhorse Bridge – mother used to tell wonderful tales of taking the coach to Allerford up Countesbury Hill, quite a hairy experience … Mother used to talk a lot about Allerford and Morebath where she spent many happy holidays.
The Harrods must have travelled back and forth between Allerford and Morebath during 1891 and beyond. There would have been trips associated with the purchase and then the building of the new house, and afterwards the family must have made trips to the seaside from time to time.
Any journey from between the two places, over Exmoor, would have involved a tiresome, lengthy, hilly and winding journey by coach. The most direct road, using the present A396, looks very convoluted but is by far the most direct and shortest route. Travelling via Countisbury Hill, which is just east of Lynmouth and about 10 miles west of Allerford, would have entailed a triangular route of about 30 miles, which seems unnecessarily devious, unless this was the better road for a coach in those days. It is possible her mother meant Porlock Hill, which is nearer Allerford, but again not a direct route from Morebath. A YouTube video of a modern double-decker bus descending Countisbury Hill in 2008 can give some idea of the journey. If you can bear to watch the seven-minute video you will understand what a frightening and difficult experience it must have been to ascend and descend this hill in a coach and four (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7rQe4aPRbc).
All the hills in the area are steep and have narrow bends. A horse and cart, or coach, remained the most effective form of transport long after the invention of the car, as early cars did not have the power to make the climb. It was not until 1920 that charabancs were able to make the journey. The only reasons for using that route might have been if the family wanted to go to the coast at Lynmouth, or if a coach service only ran by that route. Jean Pitt, talking about travel from London in her letter said, ‘Mother … told the tale of how the horse-drawn vehicle came to meet them at Lynton and then had to get up the notorious Porlock Hill and how they had to get out and push!’ They must have used this route on occasions in later years, perhaps just to visit Allerford.
The move to the West Country must have been a shock for the family. They had lived all of their lives in central London or the suburbs; Charles Digby had worked all of his life in his shop and had probably had little time for leisure. Now they found themselves living
in a palace in the middle of rural and quiet Devon.
The story written by Miss Conder in 1923 continues with her grandfather’s life after retirement, giving a glowing account of his achievements, and explaining how Charles Digby filled his time:
After such a strenuous business life he withdrew into the heart of the country, living first at Morebath, on Exmoor, and later at Heathfield in Sussex. Here he devoted his energies to the welfare of the country folk, and manifested quite a different set of interests. He took up very keenly the question of adult education and the wise use of leisure. He founded and guided Village Institutes and Social Clubs. He took a keen interest in politics, and promoted Liberal Associations … He was fervent in support of anything that concerned the welfare of children and was a true fairy godfather to the village schools and to the children’s section of the local Workhouse.
He threw himself into the local community and church. There was a ‘Harrod’ pew at St George’s Church, Morebath, and he was nominated by the vicar as church warden in Easter 1896. According to the parish records, he regularly contributed to the local charities. In 1895 he contributed a guinea, £1 1s (about £100 in today’s value) to the voluntary church rate. He gave the same amount to the organ fund; £3 16s 1d to the Clothing Club; £2 2s to the Morebath Church of England School and £1 6s 3d to the St Thomas Day Fund for the poor of the parish. The poor fund was distributed amongst fifty-four families, at the rate of half a crown, 2s 6d (about £13 in today’s value) for a man and his wife and 3d each (about £1.25) for each child not of an age to work. These contributions seem very small considering his wealth, but he gave freely of his time.
The Jewel of Knightsbridge Page 19
