The Bayfield Clark family in the drawing room at Christmas
History
The Green was built sometime before 1697, most likely by a Wiltshire wool merchant. Trowbridge was one of the major wool towns in Britain at that time, and wool was one of the mainstays of the national economy – as can be seen if you visit the near by Trowbridge museum. The house was modernised and expanded in the 1820s, and again in the 1860s (in Jacobean style) by leading wool merchant, John Bayfield Clark (1823-98) . It was then described as “a very commodious and substantially built dwelling house … fit for the residence of a genteel family…with a four-stall stable, large coach-house, brewhouse, milk-house and other convenient outhouses and offices; pleasure and kitchen gardens, and four fields of excellent pasture land.”
A workers’ treat given by the Clark family in May 1884 at their home
The Green was later bought by the diplomat and international financier, Sir Vincent Caillard (1856-1930), whose father Judge Camille Caillard, was the nephew of a Cuban marquis, and owned neighbouring Wingfield House.
Among several diplomatic achievements, Sir Vincent restructured the finances of the Ottoman Empire and raised the finance for the first Aswan Dam in Egypt, before becoming director of Vickers, Son & Maxim in 1900, one of the world's largest armaments firms at the time.
He secured for Vickers the rebuilding of the Turkish fleet in 1914, which ultimately led to the Ottoman Empire entering the war on the side of Germany after the UK government seized two of the ships. Sir Vincent’s second wife, Lady Zoe took to spiritualism and published two books of his thoughts from beyond the grave including: 'A New Conception of Love' (1934), received by means of a so-called communigraph (akin to an Ouija board).
We encourage visitors to imagine the variety of conversations which went on at the Green among the family, their guests and maybe their deceased ancestors!
The house stayed in the family until we acquired it in 2018.
Portrait of Judge Camille Caillard now hanging above the stairs