Osmington Lodge

 

Osmington lodge on the main road in Osmington was formerly the home of the Hall family.

The history of the building has been very much influenced by military ownership and war time conflict; this has resulted in it changed hands many times.

Charles Thomas Hall was a retired Lieutenant Colonel who owned a large amount of land in the village, which he had inherited from his father Charles Hall who was a wealthy farmer. Records show him living at Osmington Lodge with his family from at least 1876 until 1899.

Charles Thomas Hall was born circa 1833 and married Sarah Anne Shepheard in St Osmund’s church on 11 June 1862.

They had two sons – Charles Lillington Hall b.1865 and Robert Lillington Hall b.1872. Sadly Robert died aged 15 years and was buried in the churchyard.

Sarah Anne died in 1891 and was followed by her husband Charles Thomas in 1899. They have a large shared ornate gravestone in St Osmunds church on the left-hand side at the top of the path nearing the south entrance to the church.

Their son Charles Lillington Hall inherited Osmington lodge from his father, Charles Thomas in 1899 and lived there with his Danish wife Irena Maria Di Plenge until his death in 1910.

In November 1899 Reginald Joseph Weld of Lulworth castle proposed the creation of a railway from Lulworth to Osmington under the 1896 Light Railways Act.

The intention was for the railway to travel between Arne, East Holme, East Stoke, Tyneham, East Lulworth, West Lulworth, Chaldon Herring, Owermoigne and Osmington. If it had gone ahead Mr Weld's railway would have terminated very close to Osmington lodge!

Shepton Mallet Journal 07 July 1916

Irena was considerably younger than Charles Lillington and was widowed at 38 years old.

She had no children and remained living alone at the lodge until 1913. Under Charles Lillington’s will the property passed to his male relative, Major Robert Hall Brutton of the brewing firm Brutton and sons (Yeovil).

Irena had departed from the Lodge by 1915 and was replaced by Colonel John Gibb. In the same year Major Robert Hall Brutton died in India; his property, including Osmington Lodge, and fortune (over £3m in today’s money) passed to his many siblings.

In 1919 Osmington Lodge was occupied by Daisie Dixon and the Lodge was described as a 'business premises'.

In 1920 she had been replaced by George Lane.

The property continued to change hands regularly, possibly indicating that it was being let out to wealthy military gentlemen. By 1931 the Lodge became the home of D.S.O (retired) Rear Admiral Wion de Malpas Egerton.

Rear Admiral Egerton was a British Royal Navy officer, who served in World War I and was Deputy Director of Torpedoes and Mining from 1921 to 1922. Egerton was killed in the Second World War as commander of a North Atlantic convoy. He was convoy commodore of Convoy ON 154 aboard Empire Shackleton and picked up by HMS Fidelity after his ship was torpedoed, but he died when the rescue vessel was also torpedoed. He left a widow and three children. 

Major General David Egerton

“Rear Admiral Wion de Malpas Egerton’s son, David Egerton, had boyhood hopes of becoming a civil engineer, but was persuaded to join the Army. While he was marking out a promising future on active service during the Second World War, a shell deprived him of his left leg above the knee and severely injured his left arm. These disabilities led him to qualify for the technical staff, for which he showed great aptitude, contributing significantly to the development of weapons and munitions during the battlefield capability rivalry of the Cold War. He was made Major-General, to the inter-Service working party on the air threat to ground forces in limited war. This produced the Rapier and Blowpipe ground-to-air guided weapon systems that proved their value in the Falklands conflict of 1982.

He was vice-chairman of the Dorset Association for the Disabled and participated in the work of the Royal British Legion and many other national and local charities. In 2008, at the age of 94, he inherited the family baronetcy — created in 1617 — from his cousin Sir John Grey Egerton, 15th baronet. He declined to use the title and made inquiries as to whether he could formally renounce it”.  The Times

Major General David Egerton died in Weymouth in 2010 at the age of 97. His family is not linked to the well-established Egerton family from West Stafford.

The property passed into the hands of the Harper-Smith’s and then Osmington Lodge became a care home and was sold again in 1982 and 1997. More properties were built on the original grounds and it is currently home to four private residences.

(If you have any further information on the house, we would love to hear from you).