Diana Helen Woolner

Diana Firth was born on 2 May 1908, the only child of Cecil Malaby Firth, a barrister who worked for a time in the Advocate General’s department in Cyprus and served in Intelligence in Egypt during the 1914-8 war. Diana’s education was peripatetic, sometimes in London sometimes in Cambridge, and in the 1920s she spent time with her parents at Saqarra, where her father, a knowledgeable Egyptologist, was excavating the Step Pyramid with Sir Flinders Petrie. From him, and from her Radford friends, she absorbed an interest in the past. Ursula Radford, FSA, a notable figure in Devon ecclesiastical and archaeological circles, was a lifelong friend and godmother to one of Diana’s daughters. Ursula’s cousin, Ralegh, was also a friend whom Diana visited in 1937 during his term as Director of the British School at Rome. Another Radford, George, was a neighbour in Newton Abbot and delivered an affectionate address at her funeral. In the 1930s Diana inherited the fifteenth-century Bradley Manor, near Newton Abbot, and gave the house and park to the National Trust in 1938 at a time when such gifts were rare. She continued to live there, and made a lifetime’s study of the fabric and history of the house and its connections. Diana married in 1939 Commander Alexander (`Sandy’) Woolner RN, a descendent of Thomas Woolner of the Pre-Raphaelite group of artists, and together they brought up their four children at Bradley Manor, apart from three years in the late 1950s when Commander Woolner was posted to Malta. There Diana Woolner familiarised herself with the history of the island and studied the graffiti of ships at the megalithic temples of Tarxien, which had been excavated during the 1914-8 war. Her report on the graffiti and her conclusion that they were votive offerings of mariners who reached the shelter of Grand Harbour after storm and shipwreck, was published in Antiquity volume xxxi (1957). Woolner was a natural home-maker; everything offered for tea to her stream of visitors was always home-made, as were the pretty gifts she gave them; but she was also indefatigable in the pursuit of her antiquarian interests. These were wide ranging and included the study of Roman roads west of Exeter, stone rows on Dartmoor and chalk figures. The most notable of these was a paper on the White Horse of Uffington which she gave at an Ordinary Meeting shortly after her election to the Antiquaries. Preservation of the landscape and the conservation of ancient buildings were, naturally, of paramount importance to Woolner and she and her husband fought a successful action in 1991 against Teignbridge’s plan to allow residential development on the edge of Bradley Woods, involving the construction of a surface water pipeline through the Site of Special Scientific Interest. The compensation awarded to the Woolners by the South West Ombudsman was donated to the National Trust. A project near to her heart was the publication of Travels in Georgian Devon: the illustrated journals of the Reverend John Swete. The Reverend John Swete was born in 1752 in Ashburton, the son of Nicholas Tripe, a surgeon. On condition that he changed his name to Swete, John inherited a fortune which enabled him to undertake a number of lengthy excursions around Devon, all recorded in a series of exqusitely illustrated diaries. The Royal Institution of Cornwall and Exeter City Library acquired sets of the 17-volumes of manuscripts and drawings and the first two volumes of the complete works were published in 1997, covering the years 1792-4, and in 1998, covering the years 1793-5, with a further two volumes to come. Diana Woolner witnessed many changes in the local landscape during her long life: the dismemberment of Newton Bushel and the necrosis of Newton Abbot from a bustling market town to an anonymous shopping centre, but at least she had saved Bradley Manor and its surrounding land as a popular recreational space for the local inhabitants. She died, aged 90, at the Manor on 24 March 1999, knowing that the three of her children who lived there will continue to supervise the opening of the house on behalf of the National Trust.