Hellens

Earl Harold Godwinson was Lord of Merkelan, (Much Marcle) which included Hellens, from 1057 until his death as king at the battle of Hastings. Thereafter William the Conqueror gave the manor to his Standard Bearer Walter de Lacey. He awarded the Tythes to the monastic houses of Sainte Marie de Cormeilles and to Sainte Marie de Lyre in France. The whole was worth £30, an impressive sum for a Domesday Book village. By 1096 the manor had been granted to the de Balun family. The de Baluns were later to witness the signing of the Magna Carta.

Hellens, or Heliun, as it was then called, is first specifically mentioned in 1180, by which time the de Baluns had been created Lords of the Manor. In 1275 Sir Walter de Balun married Lord Roger Mortimer's sister Yseult (Isolde), and when Walter died she married Sir Hugh Audley. Their effigies can be seen in the parish church. Both of them, with Yseult's brother Roger, his mistress, Isabella queen of England, and the future Edward III, her son, are reputed (Gloucester Records office) to have waited in the great hall at Hellens for the Great Seal of England, delivered to them by William le Blount, on 26 November 1326. The Seal had been reclaimed from King Edward II, then imprisoned in Monmouth Castle. Mortimer and the queen are considered to have arranged for the brutal murder of the king in Berkeley Castle.

In 1337 Hugh Audley was created Earl of Gloucester, by virtue of his marriage to Margaret de Clare, granddaughter of Edward the first, and widow of Piers Gaveston, Edward the Second's favourite (Kathryn Warner, Edward 11, chapter two). Hugh Audley died in 1347, and ownership of the Manor passed to his nephew, Sir James Audley, hero of the Froissart Chronicles, warrior at Crecy and Poitiers, boon companion to Edward the Black Prince, and a founding Knight of the Garter.

Sir James, living and fighting in France, leased the Manor to Walter de Helyon, who passed it on to his daughter Joanna when she married Richard Walwyn. Their son bought the Lordship of the manor in about 1403, and the property remained named after his grandfather. A rare wooden effigy of Walter de Helyon lies in Much Marcle's parish church, St Bartholomew's. Helyon's descendants have resided at the manor nearly continuously since first taking occupancy.

Hellens is a living monument to much of England's history. It contains numerous antiques, including books, furniture, paintings and other decorations. There are items associated with Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor (Mary 1st), Elizabeth I, Charles I and II, Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton (another family relation) and of the house's inhabitants over the centuries. Among other items, a pardon for Richard Walwyn from Elizabeth I is displayed.

On one of the window panes of 'Hetty Walwyn's Room', named for Mehitabel, an 18th-century occupant confined there by her mother until her death after a failed elopement, is an inscription attributed to her which reads "It is a part of virtue to abstain from what we love if it will prove our bane".

The gardens follow Tudor style architecture and Jacobean patterns, and include a walled knot garden, a yew labyrinth, a Physic Garden, and a 17th-century octagonal dovecote . There is also a woodland and pond walk and an old cider mill, used every autumn at Big Apple weekend to make perry and cider. The stables contain a Derby coach.

Cider mill (still used each autumn)

There are also restored 16th century Tythe and Wain Barns, and Georgian Stables now remodelled for residential use. All these buildings are used for a variety of events.

The house continued in the Walwyn family, and when William Noble, High Sheriff of Herefordshire, married into the family he added their name to his own. The house passed to a great-nephew Edward Walwyn, and his descendant Ely married into the Cooke family. Charles Walwyn Radcliffe Cooke (1840-1911) was born at Hellens. In 1930 Blanche Walwyn Cooke sold the house to Lady Helena Gleichen, Queen Victoria's great-niece, friend of Axel Munthe, and a cousin to Hilda, Axel's wife, who was also related to the Walwyns, the Cookes, and to the Whartons. When Helena Gleichen left Hellens, the house passed to Hilda Pennington Mellor Munthe.

Hellens still serves partly as a family home, but also as a centre for many cultural activities, owned and administered by the Pennington-Mellor-Munthe Charity Trust. The Trust supports the distinguished Ledbury Poetry Festival, as well as Hellens May Music where musicians of international reputation come to play, relax, and teach talented young students. The trust, and the family, support initiatives for vulnerable adolescents with their Back-to-the -Wild programmes, a Forest Schools initiative for local primary and secondary schools.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hellens.

• Hellens Manor website
• Western Daily Press article from 2002.