Three Villages

what links....

• The Battle of Abu Klea
• The Charge of the Light Brigade 
• The Scots Greys monument in Gaddesby Church

The answer is three villages in Leicestershire - with three cavalry men of the early Victorian period.

Somerby Hall, ancestral home of  Frederick Gusavus Burnaby 3 March 1842 – 17 January 1885
Joined the Royal Horse Guards in 1959.  He was a great explorer, trekking through central Asia and writing a best selling Victorian book,  A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia (1876)
Frederick Burnaby was killed by the Mahdi Army in Sudan at the Battle of Abu Klea, as the British Army attempted to leave General Gordon in Khartoum.  


The Charge of the Light Brigade, made famous by some of the first war corespondents to be allowed to inform the public from the sidelines.  Earl Cardigan of Deene Park, Northamptonshire, but also of Cranoe and Smeeton Westerby, These villages are the property of the Brudenell Family of Deene Park.  Lord Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan was famously involved in the 'charge'.  The head of his charger 'Ronald' is to be seen by the staircase in Deene Park.  Cardigan, like Wellington, a item of attire made famous by a celebrated British military figure.

The monument of an almost life size horse was once in the entrance hall of Gaddesby Hall.  In 1917 the house was sold and the monument moved to St Luke's Church.  It is now said to be the largest sculpture of a horse in a church in England.  The monument is also to Edward Hawkins Cheney, an English Cavalry Coronal, who died in 1848.  In Waterloo he was famed for surviving despite loosing four horses and the fifth being wounded.