Melbourne Hall second Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's Prime Minister, was separated from his wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, in 1825, when her liaison with Lord Byron had become notorious. The house passed into the hands of the Cowper family when Emily Lamb, sister of the childless third and last Viscount Melbourne, married the 5th Earl Cowper. (She later married another Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.) It remained in the Cowper family until Lady Amabel Cowper married Admiral of the Fleet Lord Walter Kerr who made Melbourne the family home in 1906. The current owner Lord Ralph Kerr also owns Ferniehirst Castle in Scotland. He
Lamb baronets 1st Viscount Wentworth and Judith Lamb, daughter of William Lamb. In 1821 he assumed by Royal licence the surname of Lamb in lieu of his patronymic. He was succeeded by his son by his second wife Anne Montolieu, Charles, the second Baronet. He was Knight Marshal of the Royal Household between 1824 and 1864. The title became extinct on the death of the fourth Baronet in 1948. The Burges family settled near Reading during the reign of Henry VIII; the surname is claimed to derive from Bruges in Flanders. Colonel Roger Burges held the town of Faringdon for the king