Our History

The Landscape

Holbrook Manor lies two miles west of the market town of Wincanton in Somerset. Situated at the edge of The Blackmore Vale which borders Wiltshire and Dorset. The soil at Holbrook is clay upon rock known as Forest Mobile from the Jurassic period, Sherborne Abbey contains the only known medieval window which is cut from this material. A number of streams rise on the forest marble, and the brook, which may give Holbrook its name, goes on to join River Cale downstream from Wincanton.

Ancient Owners

Holbrook has, through the ages, evolved from a farm into a gentleman’s residence, and then finally to a Manor Hotel with Spa. The earliest known occupier of the ground is Giles Hose (1201 -02). By 1242 his successor was Reginald Hose.

Henry Hastings, the third Earl of Huntingdon, sold Holbrook to John Farewell in the second half of the sixteenth century. The date is uncertain, but after 1550 the Farewells were set to own Holbrook for nearly three centuries. In 1742 the Reverend Samuel Farewell was rector of Wincanton. Today’s clergy would give their eye teeth for a manse like Holbrook. In that year their son Francis was born at Holbrook. When Francis was around eight years old Samuel Farewell died and the family moved to Tiverton in Devon, where Francis was schooled at Blundells till the age of 13. At this young age he became a midshipman in the British Navy (two years after the battle of Trafalgar) and had a minor involvement in the building of The British Empire. With the Napoleonic War now over Francis Farewell was shipped off to South Africa with orders to negotiate with the world-famous Zulu Chief Chaka for the rights to trade in ivory. As part of this Francis Farewell was a founder of the Port Natal Trading Colony in 1823. He was well known locally by the native population and called Feban K Mjoji. Sadly in 1829 he was killed in a skirmish. The Port Natal Colony grew into the bustling international Port of Durban, the life of Francis Farewell and the history of Holbrook House stands tall in Wincanton, and indeed internationall