Edward wrote: "... Wondered if you would like to use this camera phone picture of the owner of Priors Mesne House, Ayburton at the turn of the 20th century. It shows Dr Robert Leamon Bowles and his great nephew Maximillian Percival and was probably taken around 1870 ... The other attachment is an account that Eunice Saturley wrote, which gives a history of the owners of Priors Mesne from 1895-1940 and also refers to the picture".

S J Lang added (October 2021): "... The photograph ... said to be of Robert Bowles and his great nephew Maximilian Perceval is incorrectly labelled. Robert Bowles was my great great grandfather, and Max Perceval was my father's godfather. Uncle Max was actually Robert Bowles's grandson, my grandmother's cousin, and was born in the 1890s. I have photographs of him as a young boy playing with my grandmother in the early years of the twentieth century. By the time he was a child Robert Bowles was an old man with grey hair. This is much more likely to be a photograph of Robert Bowles with his son, Robert Rawnsley Bowles, known as 'Johnnie', who, as you say, inherited Prior's Mesne".

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF PRIORS MESNE

by Eunice Saturley

My father, Frederick Edwards, spent most of his working life at Priors Mesne, as estate/game keeper. I think his older sister Elizabeth got him the job as she already worked there as maid to Surgeon-General Henry Cook, moving away to Colwyn Bay with the family to continue service there. My father stayed and continued to work for the new owner Dr Robert Leamon Bowles.

I never met Dr Bowles as he died a few years before I was born but father spoke very highly of him. A respected Physician, who wrote many medical books and travelled widely. He had a keen interest for gardening and father spent many hours planting with him the foreign plants and trees brought back from his travels.

My father met my mother at Priors Mesne as she also worked on the estate and the Bowles family as a wedding present gave them a 'good' piece of bedroom furniture that has remained in the same room of my family house for over 100 years.

I remember his son Robert Rawnsley Bowles who continued to live at Priors Mesne following his father's death. He was a barrister, a nice man; he spent a lot of time in London or travelling although his favourite family holiday spot was Tenby.

Myself and my three sisters spent many hours at Priors Mesne either walking to meet father from work, hay making or spending time there at Christmas. I stayed over night there many time, in my teens, with my older sister, to keep her company. She was a live-in maid and it was lonely at the house when the Bowles family were away for a weekend.
I remember the picture as it always hung on the stairs as a tribute to Dr Bowles.

Robert Rawnsley Bowles on one of his travels met Elinor Mordaunt, a writer and artist and they married abroad in the early thirties. This caused much talk at the house. I met her a few times in my early teens. She spent time writing and sketching. Father said the household was 'very different' after the marriage and a few years later they separated. The house was sold and the Bowles family moved to Cheltenham.

The picture was one of the many things my father had the chance to select before the sale. I think he wanted it for its large frame, which has long gone and the battered picture is now left to gather dust behind a cupboard. I was surprised the family didn't keep it to remember Dr. Bowles.

My father continued to work for the new owners Mr & Mrs Holmes. I cannot remember his profession but his wife Dorothy was an artist and sketched post cards of the house and many places in Bristol so I think they may have come from there.

Happy memories of a place important, not only to me but to many members of my family.

Mrs Eunice Saturley 93 yrs

Footnote:
A. Dorothy Holmes wrote a book on the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley called "Severn, Wye and Forest of Dean" (1945). The dedication read: "In memory of my husband William Arthur Holmes to whom Prior's Mesne was so dear".

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