Bury Lodge Lane

Bury Lodge has roots going back to the Roman era where a villa enjoyed the scenic view and worked the fertile land with its nearby water supply. Ruins remain of the villa but the current house followed on from a hunting lodge belonging to the Dukes of Albemarle bought from Sir Hugh Symmonds. The surrounding park landscape was formed in the late 18th century by Sir Thomas Butler, son of George Butler and born in 1776 in the family home of Down House in Kent (which later became the home of Charles Darwin). The first Sir Thomas was a substantial local landowner who purchased the estate and built the house we see today in 1806, reflecting Strawberry Hill’s Gothic style. Faced with flints and topped with a slate roof gives it a surprisingly austere look. French windows with pointed heads on the ground floor, open on to a veranda formed by round flint columns with fluted wooden capitals and a slate canopy in the centre of which is a pediment supported on two columns.

The Park’s design was simple and followed the field boundaries, planted with a belt, to provide a prominent feature in the landscape and ensuring a picturesque approach to the village from the west. Tree cover in the parkland follows the line of the ridge with three copses running north-south, presumed to follow old field boundaries which divided the parkland into fields of even-size as seen on the first edition OS map, 1860.

The parkland has been maintained over time by tenant farmers though the house known now as Hook Vinney was also called Bury Lodge Farm in the past and the lush park grassland is the result of being used for cattle and sheep pasture.

Sir Thomas Butler KCVO (1845-1937) inherited from his father, also Thomas, who died in 1885 and it is he who is pictured in the photo above. 
 
In a late chapter of Butler family ownership Bury Lodge played a noteworthy role in the World War II Normandy landings as Assembly Camp 10, hosting 1,000 troops and their transport and infrastructure awaiting D Day embarkation. Click here for Hambledon in World War II. During this period in 1944 Bury Lodge was owned by Major General Stephen Butler CB CMG DO. Upon the death of Stephen in 1964, Hew Butler inherited and his heirs finally sold the estate in 2022.