Clophill House

Clophill House was bought in 1963 by Sir Douglas Howard, a former British Ambassador to the Vatican, for his retirement. Born in 1897 in Bedford but educated at Harrow, he was commissioned to the 2nd Bedfordshire Regimant in 1915 and sent to France in 1916. He was wounded and sent home for a time but returned to action and won the Military Cross in action with the British 4th Army. After the war he joined the diplomatic corps taking assignments at both the foriegn office and at various embassies including Bucharest and Madrid, then as Ambassador in Rome and Uraguay and finally as Ambassador to the Vatican. He retired in 1957.

The Howards were an established Bedfordshire family who had become industrialists in the Victorian Age; James Howard (1821-89) and his brother Frederick founded J & F Howard Ironfounders at Britannia Steel Works in Bedford and creators of the Howard Plough. James built Clapham Park House near Bedford in 1872. The first Howard in Bedfordshire was John Howard (1726-90), who came from Hackney in London and settled near Cardington in 1758. While having been held prisoner in France he became very concerned after the welfare of other prisoners. His work touring prisons after becoming High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1773 led to two Acts of Parliament to reform prison governance and standards of care and the formation of the Howard League for Penal Reform. There is a statue of John Howard in Bedford, designed in 1894 by Sir Alfred Gilbert who also did the statue of Eros at Picadilly Circus, and another in St Paul's Cathedral in London - the first person to be so honoured - as well as one in Kherson (in the Ukraine, where he died in 1790) and numerous busts at prison, notably the prison at Shrewsbury. His eldest son, John, was sent down from Cambridge for homosexuality, and as a result of this was judged to be insane and committed to an asylum at the age of 21 where he died 13 years later in 1799.

Having returned to his roots in Bedfordshire Sir Douglas threw himself into village life. He was a keen patron of St Mary's church and of the local Conservative Association and was generous in his support of village charitable work. Villagers remember him as a tall handsome man walking his small dog Gary through the village twice daily.

He was very proud of his garden and regularly opened it to the village. The garden was managed by Barbara Izzard, a formidable plantswoman who lived in one of the cottages on the south side of High Street and was one of the organisers of Clophill Open Gardens. Mrs Izzard had previously been housekeeper at Clophill House for Mrs Phillips, where she had married the gardener.

There was also a full-time gardener, Gordon, to do the heavy work, and manage the vegetable garden. As with Mr Grummet we were lucky to get the chance to talk with him and record some of his memories of Sir Douglas. He told us how Mrs Izzard would berate Sir Douglas for not watering his roses enough. He recalled on one occasion being called by Sir Douglas to clear some chickens from the garden, only to find that they were pheasants. On another occasion he was called to repair the TV and found it with a book embedded in the middle of its screen. "It's that Mr Wilson," [then Prime Minister] said Sir Douglas sheepishly, "he makes me so angry!"

Sir Douglas was friends with many of the great and good and regularly hosted guests at Clophill. These included the Dowager Lady Brabourne, whose son married the daughter of Lord Mountbatten and who later died with him after the IRA explosion on their boat off County Sligo in 1979, and there are tales in the village that when the new roundabout was opened at the A6 and A507 he was able to arrange for her to fly in by helicopter and land on the central island to open it.

As Sir Douglas grew old he was looked after from 1979 by a butler and housekeeper, William and Susan Bunting, who had a child at Clophill, Oliver, (known locally as Baby Bunting). They were kind enough to visit us more recently and share stories and photos of that era. Sir Douglas was always rather formal and preferred to address his butler as "Bunting", but as he grew older and more frail they became more of a family and enabled him to fulfill his last wish that he die at Clophill in his own bed.

Gordon fitted handrails throughout the garden (that we later removed) for Sir Douglas, who in his latter years was wheelchair bound. He finally lived downstairs in Clophill House with his bedroom in what is now the Dining Room and a shower and lavatory next door, which we have subdivided. A ramp was fitted to the steps to the left of the drawing room so he could continue to enjoy his garden from his wheelchair.

Sir Douglas Howard died peacefully on Boxing Day in December 1987, aged 90. The cottage at 2 Mill Lane was sold to its tenants along with part of the field to give them a larger garden. Clophill House was bought at auction by Jim Tiernan who lived there with his wife Veena and sons from 1988 to 2005.