the long and the short of it

...unfortunately, but not entirely surprisingly, I had an email this morning cancelling today's Butterfly Conservation members' day because of the bad weather.

Just north of Morden, where the members' day was due to have taken place, lies the estate of Charborough Park. Like many of the houses I have been featuring this month, it has been occupied by the same family, the Erles, throughout its history, which extends from Elizabethan times to the present day.

One of the things that has been a near constant throughout that period is that the masters of the house have been Members of Parliament. One of these was Sir Walter Erle, who inherited Charborough at the age of 11. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford before going on to study law at the Inner Temple. He was elected as MP for Poole in 1614, knighted in 1616, and became High Sheriff of Dorset in 1618. He was re-elected as MP for Poole several times and then MP for Lyme Regis in 1625. It was at this time that King Charles I started upsetting the status quo and Erle was one of the four Dorset men who refused to pay the forced loans that the Crown had served on the gentry. For this, he was imprisoned for nearly a year in Fleet Prison. It was his writ, that he obtained while in jail, that set a legal precedent in restricting the Crown's autocratic powers.

Following King Charles I's eleven year rule without parliament, Erle was elected MP for Lyme Regis in the Short Parliament of 1640. In November of the same year, he was returned as MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in the Long Parliament. When the Civil War broke out, Erle became a Colonel in the Parliamentary army and military governor of Dorchester. In 1643, he was in charge of the forces that besieged Corfe Castle but, after six weeks and the loss of 100 men, he fled by boat on hearing of the approach of a superior Royal army under Lord Carnarvon. He was soon back and went on to serve as MP for Dorset in the First and Second Protectorate Parliaments. In 1660, he was elected again as MP for Poole in the Convention Parliament.

Charborough was also the venue for the meeting of conspiritors in 1686, hosted by Walter's son, Thomas Erle, that effectively set the stage for the overthrow of King James II of England and the offer of the Crown to William of Orange.

The Erle family was not very good at producing male heirs, a situation that rendered their various heiress daughters highly desirable. It also led to one of the most hyphenated surnames around. The present incumbent is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, who is MP for South Dorset. In his efforts to make the Conservative Party appear a little less crusty, David Cameron made it clear to his candidates that he was not keen on double or, indeed, quadruple-barrelled surnames, so he sticks to just plain old Richard Drax.

But, it is Richard's grandfather, Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax that we are interested in because he was a close friend of Ian Fleming and widely thought to be the inspiration behind his character Hugo Drax in Moonraker.

Once again, this is a house and park that is not open to the public (other than two open days each year) so I have had to contend with the Lion and Stag gates that anyone travelling along the A31 between Wimborne Minster and Bere Regis will be familiar with. The statues were constructed from Lithodipyra or Coade stone by Eleanor Coade's 'Artificial Stone Manufactory'.

The property and its folly tower were the model for Welland House in Thomas Hardy's novel, Two on a Tower...