A BOOK has been published bringing to life the past of a county house dating back to the 13th century.

Barton Court sits on the edge of Colwall between Ledbury and Malvern and is now a country house with rooms on site available for weekend getaways and corporate events.

George Demidowicz, a buildings and landscape historian from Malvern, took two years to put ‘A History of Barton Court Colwall’ together, discovering facts revealed outshone the legends gathered over the years, gathering together pieces of the history from as far away as America and Australia.

Mr Demidowicz said: “Henry Lambert was said to have rebuilt the house in the late 18th century, according to legend, to please his wife but we found out his wife died long before the rebuild so that wasn’t true.

“He came from an Anglo-Irish family in Dublin and was a naval officer and when he married Jane Pritchard, her father objected as he was relatively poor and had probably only been out of the Navy for about a year.

“She was an heiress, and the father was concerned about the family fortune.”

The whole book from research to publishing cost £2500, funded by the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

A spokesman for AONB said: “We funded it because we like to promote greater understanding of the historic environment and Barton Court was one of the most significant landholdings in the Malvern Hills AONB over many centuries.”

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The pandemic but a halt to a face-to-face book launch.

Mr Demidowicz added: “The virus has messed things up.

“The house still has vestiges of all the building fashions during its long existence.

“Its owners over time, have intermarried with the heirs of neighbouring lands, sometimes with bitter fights.

Yet one mystery remains: where did Henry Lambert get all his money from?

The book is available on Amazon.