Spye Park

The house was first known to be owned in the 16th century by Edward Baynton (1517–1593) of Rowdon; he had previously been Battle Abbey Steward and bought Bromham manor in 1538.

[1] To build Bromham Hall he used material salvaged from Devizes Castle and a royal manor house at Corsham.

The house passed out of the Bayntun family when the heiress Ann Baynton married Edward Rolt (d. 1722), of Sacombe Park, MP for Chippenham.

Ann Rolt, née Bayntun, had several children with her first husband, and at his death, she married in 1724 the 13th Lord Somerville and had further issue, two sons and one daughter.

The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, had offered three times as much, but was refused by the owner John Baynton Starkey for reasons unknown.

In the 1930s, the owner was Captain Frank Fitzroy Spicer, DSO, MC (d. 1973), who in 1931 married (as her second husband) Lady Avice Sackville-West (b.

According to a local history website, the Spicers decided to tear down the ruin as it was riddled with dry rot, which was worsened by the drenching which the house received from the firemen's hoses.

[citation needed] Members of the family own the casual dining chain Nando's and the Hollard Group of insurance companies.

Sir Edward Bayntun (1517–1597) built the new house circa 1554, and married a Howard relative Agnes Ryce (d. 1574), formerly the mistress of a nobleman Lord Stourton (d. 1548).

[11] In his will expressly forbade interference by his wife and her relations, a powerful Wiltshire family, in his children's education and upbringing.

[12] Estate inherited by Maria Barbara Bayntun Starkey (1780–1870), apparently passed by entail or other provision to her son.

It is a mosaic of six partly wooded areas, in total 223 acres (90 ha), including "some of the finest undisturbed alderwoods in the county".