The Portman family line can be traced back to merchants in Taunton, Somerset in the 14th century. They married well and soon had a mansion house and Coat of Arms to match. Sir William Portman (1498-1557) was a lawyer at the Middle Temple in London. He took a lease on 270 acres in the manor of Lillestone outside London and then, following the Dissolution of the monasteries, purchased it from the Crown in 1554.
The Portman family played leading roles in Somerset and Dorset society and politics, building a fine mansion at Bryanston outside Blandford Forum in Dorset. However, it was the development of their London fields in the mid 18th century that proved the most successful business venture.
In the Victorian period the family were prominent figures in public affairs: Lady Portman was lady in waiting to Queen Victoria and Lord Portman an active politician also in charge of the Duchy of Cornwall. Their London estate combined genteel, fashionable housing with valuable retail businesses and important railway stations. However, a succession of deaths in the first half of the 20th century combined with crushing death duties forced the sale of the West Country estates and, in the 1950’s, half of the Marylebone estate.
The compelling tale of the Portman family is told in the book “From Somerset to Portman Square” by Tom Mayberry and Richard Bowden, published in 2022. Tom Mayberry is CEO of South West Heritage and Richard Bowden former archivist to the Portman Estate. Well illustrated and accessible to all the book charts the changing fortunes of the family and their estates from early beginnings to the present day.
