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Bacon's Mansion at St. Albans
When Francis Bacon died in 1626 his debts, being claims against his estate, were 19,658 Pounds, far more than his
assets.
His principal asset was the manor of Gorhambury, which his widow Viscountess Alice claimed, through deeds
and as her widow's entitlement. She was not evicted until 1632.
Bacon's former secretary, Sir Thomas Meautys, obtained control of the manor and retired there in 1642; he died in
1649, leaving it to his brother Henry. Here I will quote Hostage to Fortune, The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon,
Jardine and Stewart, 1998:
Henry liquidated his entire interest in both the Meautys and the Bacon estates, selling to the second husband
of Thomas's widow, Sir Harbottle Grimston who went on the become Speaker of the House of Commons and Master
of the Rolls, in two lots totalling 12,700 Pounds.
The estate soon fell into ruin. When John Aubrey visited Gorhambury in 1656 he found what had once been
Bacon's 'paradise,' now a large plowed field which Meautys had let as grazing land. The elegant summerhouses
were "yet standing, but defaced, so that one would have thought the barbarians had made a conquest here." The
ponds, at which visitors used to delight in the coloured pebble figures created on the bottom, were "now overgrown
with flags and rushes." Ten years later, Verulam House [not the manor] had gone, "sold by Sir Harbottle Grimston,
Baronet, to two carpenters for 400 Pounds; of which they made 800 Pounds."
Gorhambury, Bacon's manor in the Seventeenth Century
Ruins in late 1800's
Ruins in 1965
Francis Bacon at age 18.
Nicholas Bacon
Crest from Novum Organum
Child Bust of Bacon
Click here for more views of Gorhambury
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