Tributes as aristocrat’s widow dies

THE widow of one of the West’s most colourful aristocrats – the 8th Earl Henry ‘Barmy’ Bathurst – has died at the age of 90.

It brings to an end a family feud involving her stepson which went all the way to the High Court.

Gloria Wesley, the Dowager Countess Bathurst, died peacefully aged 90 at her home in the Manor Farm on the 15,000-acre Bathurst estate near Cirencester on Thursday.

She had lived in the farm since the death of her husband, after agreeing to move out of the estate’s main house, Cirencester Park, for the 9th Earl Bathurst, Allen. But the relationship between the two was difficult.

The pair took a dispute over the interpretation of a will written by the late 8th Earl to the High Court last year.

It centred on the Dowager wanting to assert what she believed was her right to enter the park home and spend days making an inventory of its contents, which include a Regency portrait of the Duke of Wellington valued at £6 million.

But a judge ruled against her after hearing from the Earl how she had been intrusive.

Born in America, she moved to the UK and married, firstly, David Rutherston in Kensington in 1965 and lived at Jaynes Court in Bisley, Gloucestershire.

Thirteen years later she married the 8th Earl Henry, who was nicknamed ‘Barmy’, and inherited four stepchildren including Allen.

The Mayor of Cirencester Nigel Robbins yesterday said he ‘knew very little’ about her work in the community.

He added: “I think her active days were really some time ago. I express my sympathy for the family.”

Six years ago she was pictured at a charity car boot sale at the National Trust’s Lodge Park in Sherborne in the Cotswolds.

A year later she removed the right for staff at Cirencester Hospital to park on gravel-topped land she owns, despite the 9th Earl Allen being president of the hospital’s League of Friends.

And in 2011 she backed down on refusing to renew the lease of Cirencester Park Polo Club, saying she wanted it to be less commercial and more of a traditional gentleman’s polo club.

Her late husband also had a flair for the occasional high-profile argument, clashing with a teenage Prince William when he spotted the young royal speeding on his estate.

The Bathurst family has its origins in Sussex, but the estates and castle there were lost during the Wars of the Roses. Since the early 18th century, the family has been based in the South West.

Her death was confirmed by the Bathurst estate on Thursday.