The Family

The Trevors were a successful family from North Wales who achieved knighthoods and wealth during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. The family’s first peerage was in 1712, when Queen Anne needed twelve extra peers to force the Treaty of Utrecht, in order to end the War of Spanish Succession through the House of Lords. During the mid-1700s, Richard Trevor (also Bishop of St Albans and Durham), carried out substantial alterations to the house. A new stable block and clock tower were built, wyverns were erected on the pillars at the end of the drive and the house was turned around to face the east. In 1824, with no Trevor heir, the estate passed to a cousin, Henry Otway Brand.

The Brand family came from Hertfordshire and in the latter part of the eighteenth century one of them married Gertrude, heiress to the barony of Dacre and daughter of a Miss Trevor of Glynde. This title is one of the oldest in the English peerage starting in 1321. Due to a dispute at the time of the War of the Roses the title can go through the female line if there is no direct male heir. Her younger son, Henry Otway, also to become Lord Dacre, came to live at Glynde in 1824.

He left Glynde to his younger son Henry Bouverie Brand who had a distinguished career in politics. He was private secretary to the home secretary during the 1840s, chief government whip to the Liberal administration of Lord Palmerston and speaker of the House of Commons from 1872 til 84.

On his retirement he was created a Viscount and resurrected the title of Hampden. On his death he left Glynde to his younger son, Admiral Thomas Brand, who was succeeded by his son Humphrey who died in 1953. Humphrey Brand’s widow Aimee lived at Glynde until her death and, with no children, left the property to the present owner, Viscount Hampden.