In 1857, the eminent land-owner Wadham Locke III owned a property in Seend called Rew House. After knocking it down, his son, Wadham Locke IV built Cleeve House half a mile from the original site, to be the Wadham family home. He and his five sisters made their home here, and one sister, Frances Locke, became famous for going to the Crimean War. She was the last Locke to live at Cleeve House, and when she left in 1883 the building was sold to the Bell Family.
Squire William Heward Bell, having built his fortune on the family's coal mines in Merthyr Tydfil, purchased the property for his family. He pulled down a large amount of the building and rebuilt what is now the Great Hall and adjoining entrance porch in 1884. The Hall was adorned with the many trophies of Squire Bell's hunting prowess, including a huge moose head and the skins of a tiger and a bear.
Squire Bell and his wife, Hannah Taylor Cory Bell, had four children, one of whom was the famous writer and critic Clive Bell. In 1907, the final part of the Cleeve House, including the Library and above bedrooms were built to 'make the house more comfortable' as it was the year of Clive Bell's marriage to Vanessa Stephen. Both Clive and Vanessa Bell were important members of the culturally revolutionary Bloomsbury group, in which Clives writing was influencial, and Vanessa was a prominent artist.
The young Vanessa Stephen pursued art as her profession while her sister, Virginia Woolf, chose writing. Close to her sister throughout her often troubled life, Virginia Woolf visited Vanessa Bell in Cleeve House, and wrote about the house in her famous diaries. Of the four Bell children, Colonel W Cory Bell, who was an MP and Sheriff of Wiltshire, lived at Cleeve House longest, until his death in 1961.
The Bell family crest adorns the front porch, and personal Bell inscriptions can be found among the stone and woodwork throughout the house.
