Mortons House Hotel

[6] When Edward died in 1683 the house was left to his son Henry Dacombe who sold it to John Morton of Henbury.

She thought these changes would damage the next generation as working men were struggling to feed their families, she said, and widows were expected to be grateful for a pittance to raise their fatherless children: "The West Country labourer is supposed to live on the beauty of his scenery and his picturesque (and too often insanitary) house".

[14] She had a wide variety of close friends from George Bernard Shaw and Keir Hardie, to the Duke of Argyll and Edward VII's mistress, Alice Keppel.

[15] She was also friends with the famous painter Philip de László and his wife Lucy Guinness and in the 1920s this couple visited them at Mortons House.

De Loszlo owned one of the first motion cameras and a short home movie of their visit to the house can be seen at this reference.

In 1983 Sir John Rupert Colville wrote a book on Ruth's interesting life called Strange Inheritance.

Lieutenant Colonel Ashley Raymond Bond moved in with his wife Annette Hester Mary Bowles.