Wyndham family of Orchard Wyndham

Sir John Wyndham (knighted 1547), second son of Sir Thomas Wyndham of Felbrigg (Norfolk), married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of John Sydenham, through whom he acquired property in north Somerset (Orchard, Williton, Watchet, etc) and Devon (Bondleigh). Their son John (d. 1572) married Florence, sister and co-heir of Nicholas Wadham, through whom he acquired properties including Ilton (Somerset) and Silverton (Devon). (For another co-heir of the Wadham estates see Fox-Strangways, Earls of Ilchester.) In the 17th century the Somerset and Devon estates were extended by purchase, and the family also had properties in Dorset (Mappowder), Wiltshire (Mere) and Hampshire (Southampton). John Wyndham (d. 1649) married Catharine, daughter and co-heir of Robert Hopton of Witham (Somerset), a property sold in 1762. Their son William Wyndham was created a baronet in 1661, and Sir Charles Wyndham, 4th Bt, succeeded as 2nd Earl of Egremont in 1750, on inheriting part of the Percy estates (see Wyndham, Barons Leconfield and Egremont).

The 3rd Earl of Egremont died in 1837, being succeeded in the Wyndham estates by a nephew, George O’Brien Wyndham, who became 4th Earl of Egremont. Some property in Devon and Somerset held at one time by the Earl of Thomond (d. 1774) and later by the Hon. Percy Wyndham (d. 1833), second son of the 2nd Earl of Egremont, appears to have passed to the 3rd and then to the 4th Earl. Another son of the 2nd Earl, the Hon. Charles William Wyndham (1760-1828), was a co-heir of the Seymour estates of the 7th Duke of Somerset, inheriting the manors of Allington and Slaughterford (Wiltshire). These properties also passed to the 4th Earl, but were sold in 1840. (For another co-heir of the Seymour estates in Somerset and Wiltshire see Manners, Dukes of Rutland)

The 4th Earl of Egremont died without issue in 1845, and on the death of his widow in 1876 his estates passed to a kinsman, William Wyndham (1834-1914) of Dinton (Wiltshire). The Wyndhams of Dinton were descended from William Wyndham, who purchased Dinton in 1689-90 and married Henrietta Stratford of Hawling (Gloucestershire: sold in 1808). He was the third son of Sir Wadham Wyndham (d. 1688), of St Edmund’s College, Salisbury, who was a younger brother of John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham and the purchaser, in or before 1659, of Norrington (Wiltshire). Following the death of John Wyndham of Norrington in 1750 some property of the Norrington branch descended to John’s daughter Anne, wife of James Everard Arundell (see Arundell, Barons Arundell of Wardour), but some former Wadham property and eventually (on Anne’s death in 1796) Norrington itself passed to the Dinton line. William Wyndham of Dinton (1769-1814) married in 1794 Laetitia, daughter of Alexander Popham, a Master in Chancery. In the early 19th century the Dinton estate was enlarged by the purchase of Arundell lands in Wiltshire and Somerset, and in the late 19th century property in Hampshire (Hinton Admiral, Ripley), Shropshire (Beckbury) and Somerset was inherited from another branch of the Wyndham family.

Estates in 1883: Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham and Dinton: Somerset 11,231 acres, Devon 6,740 acres, Wilts 5,734 acres, Surrey 3 acres, total 23,708 acres worth £37,420 a year; Wyndham of Hinton Admiral (in 1873): c926 acres in Hants, Salop and Somerset. (Of the total of 23,708 acres held by the Wyndhams of Orchard Wyndham and Dinton in 1883, 5,734 acres in Wiltshire and 2,866 acres in Somerset represented the estates of the Dinton branch.)