•
BEN
HALLIDAY
Born:
Liverpool, 1922
Lived:
Countisbury
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 4 hrs 6 mins
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Ben Halliday's great great uncle built Glenthorne in the first part of the nineteenth century, inspired by the Romantic Movement and the cult of the picturesque. Then he bought Countisbury parish, and the title of Lord of the Manor to go with it. To Ben, who spent childhood holidays there, it was a place of enchantment and adventure.
An academic and reformer, he taught in the state system after the war. On his father's death he inherited Glenthorne and, with his wife, devoted himself to restoring it and managing the estate. He became a magistrate and a member of the National Park Committee, there at a time when ploughing the moorland was a contentious issue. He it was who pioneered the first management agreement. He later received an OBE.
Always conscious of the responsibility of managing an entailed estate, he did his best by Glenthorne, eventually selling the house and moving into Ashton Farm. It was a decision not easy to take.