Malford Farm and the Meux Estate

Lord Cowley was not the only major landowner selling off his land and properties in the early 1900s. The huge fortune of the Meux family came from having a brewery in London in the 1800s, and resulted in ownership of a number of country estates across England. The story of the Meux family is as fascinating as that of the Wellesley-Longs of Draycot. Their Wiltshire holdings were so big that, when the Meux family came to sell up in 1906, they needed three separate Auctions: one for the Marlborough area; one for the Wootten Bassett area; and one for Dauntsey and Christian Malford.

The third sale, on 16th October 1906, included Lot No 1, 'Dauntsey House, a stately mansion standing in a park of 300 acres'. At Lot No 7 was the 'very sound agricultural holding ...' of Malford Farm, with a sitting tenant Mr W J Bodman. However, Lot No 1 was withdrawn from the auction after only attracting a highest bid of £130,000; several other Lots were also withdrawn, and it is not clear whether or not Malford Farm sold immediately. But by 1920 it was for sale again, as Lot No 51 in the Draycot Auction, and still with Mr Bodman as the tenant.

The Draycot Estate finances were already in a poor way by 1906 - so why did they buy Malford Farm?