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The Merry Widow of Ufton


Lady Marvyn - © Nash Ford Publishing

 

 

  • Elizabeth Mompesson grew up in Wiltshire. As a young girl, her friend, John Marvyn, wanted to marry her; but she married Richard Perkins of Ufton Nervet in Berkshire instead.
  • Richard and Elizabeth lived in a moated manor house called Ufton Robert Manor.
  • Richard and his brother did not get on with their neighbour, Sir Humphrey Forster. Sir Humphrey once attacked the manor with armed men. He would have killed Richard if Elizabeth had not intervened.
  • After Richard died, Elizabeth finally agreed to marry John Marvyn who was now a knight. She became Lady Marvyn, but John died too.
  • Near her home, her brother-in-law, William Perkins, had been renting Ufton Pole Manor from Sir Richard Weston.
  • Lady Marvyn inherited lots of money from her father and her two husbands. She liked the house and decided to buy it.
  • She redecorated the great hall with a fashionable, but expensive, pendant ceiling. She extended the house and built a new west wing. She brought beams decorated with green men from Ufton Robert as a good luck charm.
  • She renamed the house 'Ufton Court'.
  • She invited her friends to lots of parties there and they were all very jealous.
  • In later life, Lady Marvyn once got lost in the local woods. Some villagers helped her find her way back to Ufton Court.
  • So she left lots of money in her will to pay for giving out bread and cloth to the villagers of Ufton and Padworth every year. This still happens, out of a window at Ufton Court, every year. There is a curse on any owner who refuses to do it!

       What happened next at Ufton Court?

    © Nash Ford Publishing 2014. All Rights Reserved.