Sale of Cheswardine Hall associated buildings and land

John Donaldson-Hudson died on the 4th November 1949 at Les Apres, Biot, near Cannes, France from the effects of tuberculosis and it was decided by his widow, Dorothy Elizabeth (nee Freemantle) that Cheswardine Hall and the associated estate should be sold. 

On the 14th September 1950 Cheswardine Hall, along with the  part of the Stable Block, the Gardener's Cottage, the walled vegatable garden and approximately 67 acres were sold by John Donaldson-Hudson's widow to the Institute of of The Brothers of Christian Instruction. The sum paid was £20,000, equivalent in 2022 to about £730,000. As well as the purchased property they were also given the right of sewage and drainage in the adjacent fields to the east of the property to the septic tanks, filter beds and soakaways on Yew Tree Farm and Lipley Hall Farm.

There was also the right to have a piped overflow from the lake to a gully in Marsh Lane.

The sale did not include the major part of the Stable Block, which had already been leased to the Milk Marketing Board in about 1946, but it did include access for the Milk Marketing Board to their septic tank and pipes to the west of the Stable Block, and also drains that lead through the wood  to the public highway before  opening into the open drain and the Coal Pit Plantation.

The Milk Marketing Board purchased their formerly leased properties from the executors of John Donaldson-Hudson on the 26 February 1951 for the sum of £8,500. The image below shows the extent of the premises and land transferred to the Milk Marketing Board, which continued to be used as an Artificial Insemination Centre until the housing of bulls from which to collect fresh semen was no longer required as this procedure had been superceded by the dilution and freezing of bovine semen in liquid nitrogen. A new premises was built further down on the opposite side of the back drive in about 1981, what has now become a private house known as Oak Lodge.

The Brothers of Christian Instruction ran a Catholic boy's school on the premises until Jul 1968 and Cheswardine Hall was sold on 2nd May 1969 to the Morgan Building Company Limited of Boothen Old Road, Stoke on Trent, for the sum of £19,250. The Morgan Building Company hoped to turn Cheswardine Hall into a holiday campsite with about 60 caravans, using the hall premises for dining and social facilities. The proposal was turned down by the Secretary of State for the Environment in May 1972.

As a result, the property was sold again, on the 4th of September 1972 to Derek and Irene Brunt for the sum of £40,000. 

Derek Brunt  had been a child welfare officer under London County Council. Irene Brunt was a trained mental nurse and state registered nurse. He was warden of a working boy' hostel at Stockwell in Lambeth, London and then warden of a hostel and school at Seaford, Sussex run by the Invalid Children's Aid Association, before opening Murray House, Cranbrook, Kent in 1957, where their two daughters were born. They moved to Aston Subedge, Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire on the 1st September 1960 where he set up Burnt Norton School as principal, warden and owner. He took out a 21 year lease on the house. The school housed 43 boys aged 10 to 15 whose records indicated various degrees of personal or social maladjustment or neglect. All pupils were sponsored by Local Authorities at a cost of £466 per head per annum. The school was placed on the list of Approved Schools by the Secretary of State for Education and Science on the 21st January 1965. They moved the school to Cheswardine Hall and continued to run it as Burnt Norton School until 1983 for boys who had a deprived or antisocial background, known then as an Approved School. On the 22nd June 1973 Mr & Mrs Brunt borrowed £30,500 repayable by 120 monthly instalments of £254.17 and the sum was repaid in full by 27th January 1983.