92 MINTERNE. 



Battle of Blenheim, after which, for his many services, he was 

 made Governor of Brussels, Colonel of the Coklstream Guards, 

 and Governor of the Island of Guernsey. He died much lamented 

 in 1714, aged 55. He resided the latter part of his life at 

 Minterne. This General Churchill married Mary, daughter and 

 sole heiress of James Gould, of Dorchester. He left no children. 

 Two years after his death Mrs. Churchill married Montague Earl 

 of Abingdon. She was left for the second time a widow. 



In 1757 she was burnt to death in her Town house, at Dorchester, 

 which was burnt down. 



Lady Abingdon probably resided a good deal at Minterne after 

 her second husband's death, as the staircase at the east end of the 

 house always went by the name of Lady Abingdon's staircase and 

 a clear cold spring in the shrubbery as Lady Abingdon's well. She 

 left the Minterne Estate at her death to one of her own relations, 

 Nicholas Gould, of Frome Belet, near Dorchester, who, dying 

 without issue 1760, it came to his elder brother, John Gould, of 

 Upwey, Esq., on whose death it devolved to his son James, who 

 sold it, in the year 1768, to the Hon. Robert Digby, brother to 

 Lord Digby and Admiral of the White. 



There is an old map of the house and grounds in 1724, by which 

 the mansion appears to be as large, or larger, than at present. 

 Hutchings records that General Churchill (brother of the Duke of 

 Marlborough), who was in possession at the beginning of the last 

 century, almost wholly rebuilt the house. The plan of 1724 

 cannot well be made out. There were steps on the east front 

 leading down to terraces between the house and the Avater, which 

 seems only to have consisted of square fish ponds. To the right 

 or south of the terraces was an orchard and kitchen garden. The 

 principal front of the house must have faced, like many other old 

 places, to the north and east, as the stables, outhouses, and back 

 yard were on the south side, where is now the flower garden. 



The living rooms consisted, according to the inventory taken in 

 1768 (when Admiral Digby purchased the place), of common 

 parlour, &c., the tapestry parlour (the latter, perhaps, the same 



