Arundell family, Barons Arundell of Wardour

The Arundells of Lanherne were prominent in Cornish affairs from the 13th century, and had both property in Cornwall and Devon. In 1451, Sir John Arundell married Catherine, daughter and co-heir of Sir John Chideock, who brought estates in Dorset (Chideock etc.), Somerset and Gloucestershire. In 1473 or 1474 Sir Thomas Arundell, son of Sir John, married Catherine, sister of Lord Dinham and co-heir of estates in Devon and other counties. Sir John Arundell (1623-1701) left his estates to his daughter Frances, who in 1671 had married Richard Bellings. Their granddaughter, Mary Bellings-Arundell, married in 1739 Henry Arundell, later 7th Baron Arundell of Wardour, and on her death in 1769 she was succeeded in the Arundell of Lanherne estates (by now comprising only the Cornish lands and Chideock) by her son the 8th Baron. The Cornish estates were nearly all sold by 1808.

Thomas Arundell, younger son of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne (d. 1545), received property in Dorset, Somerset and Devon from his father and purchased Wardour Castle (Wiltshire) from Sir Fulke Greville in 1547. This branch of the family acquired further estates in Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and Devon. Sir Thomas Arundell (d. 1639) was created Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1605. The 8th Baron, who built a new Wardour Castle from 1770, married in 1764 Maria Conquest of Irnham (Lincolnshire). On his death in 1808 Irnham passed to a younger daughter, who married the 6th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, but the Arundell estates (excluding those of the Lanherne line already sold, and other properties alienated by 1808) passed to his elder daughter, wife of her cousin James Everard Arundell, who succeeded as 9th Baron. In 1751 his father, James Everard Arundell senior, had maried Anne, daughter of John Wyndham of Salisbury and Norrington (Wiltshire), through whom property in Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset descended to the Arundells. In the late 17th century other Hampshire property had been inherited by the Arundells of Wardour from the Philpott family. By the late 19th century, however, the Arundell estates were almost entirely confined to Wiltshire. In 1883 the estates comprised 6,037 acres in Wiltshire and 182 acres in Cornwall, worth £9,174 a year.