Patrick Joynson-Wreford: Final Years and Return to Seskinore

Patrick (“Pat”) Joynson-Wreford’s later years were shaped by reflection, rediscovery, and an unexpected return to a family story from which he had long been separated.

For most of his life, that story had been unknown to him.

But following his reunion with his half-sister Xenia in 2004, Pat became closely connected not only with her, but with the wider history of his father and Seskinore. What had once been distant and unknowable gradually became real.

Later Life

In the years after their meeting, Pat remained in regular contact with Xenia and took part in visits to Seskinore.

These visits were not a return to a remembered past, but an encounter with a life he had only discovered late in life—a landscape that had shaped his father, yet had played no part in his own upbringing.

Even so, the connection deepened.

Declining Health

By 2012, Pat’s health began to deteriorate. Periods of confusion led to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Despite this, he retained much of what had always defined him:

• a strong sense of identity
• warmth in his relationships
• and a characteristic humour that remained with him even as his condition progressed

Return, Reunion, and Letting Go

Pat arranged for Xenia to travel from Australia. She stayed for just over six weeks, and during that time we returned together to Seskinore, spending several days walking the grounds that had once shaped her earliest life.

It was not an easy visit. Being away from familiar routines proved difficult at times, yet there were still moments of warmth and quiet joy—fragments of connection in a place that had long since changed.

Rebuilding the Family

During that same visit, Xenia and I travelled to Surrey to meet relatives with whom we had only recently been in contact.

Julia Chessun (née Mathews) and her husband Stewart had organised a large family gathering. It was a remarkable day—filled with conversation, shared memories, and the gradual weaving together of a family long separated.

Julia generously shared a collection of family portraits and photographs, many of which were carefully preserved and later added to the McClintock archive.

From Surrey, we travelled on to Bristol, where Xenia’s cousin David Stewart and his wife Bridget welcomed us.

Once again, a gathering had been arranged.

It was another day of warmth and recognition—of names gaining faces, and stories finding their place. David, too, had preserved a wealth of family memorabilia, offering further pieces of a history that had once been hidden.

The Last Estate Decisions

Amid these reconnections, attention turned once more to Seskinore itself.

Xenia raised again the question of selling McClintock Primary School, a property she had only discovered she owned during earlier research.

At the time, it had seemed sensible to retain it. The school provided a steady income, and as an unexpected inheritance, it required little from her. But circumstances—and time—had changed.

The market had slowed, yet there remained the possibility that the site would appeal to a long-term investor.

It was at this point that I recognised my role had reached its natural conclusion.

The research was complete. The titles had been clarified. The legal and estate matters had been brought into order.

What remained was no longer discovery—but responsibility.

And that belonged to Xenia, and to the next generation.

Handing Over

All documents, records, and correspondence were passed to her.

The land agent in Belfast was informed that I would no longer act on her behalf. From that point forward, the management of the property rested entirely with Mrs Lewis.

It marked a quiet but important transition—from recovery of the past to stewardship of what remained.

Final Years

After Xenia returned to Australia, contact became less frequent, though it never entirely ceased.

Updates continued—particularly about Pat.

In October, he suffered a fall at home, fracturing his hip. It became clear he could no longer live independently. In January 2013, he moved to Westerton Care Home in Bearsden, where he was well cared for and remained content.

Though his general condition stabilised for a time, his underlying illness continued its slow progression.

The End of an Era

In 2018–2019, Xenia made the decision to sell the school.

With that sale, a final link to the estate passed out of Perry–McClintock hands.

After nearly three centuries, the last tangible holding at the heart of Seskinore village left the family.

Legacy

What remained was no longer land or buildings—but memory.

The estate had been fragmented, the house demolished, and the lands dispersed.

Yet through rediscovery, reunion, and the careful gathering of its history, Seskinore had not been lost.

Its story—once scattered—had been brought back together.

And in that sense, the ending was not one of disappearance,

but of return.

Death and a Final Wish

Pat died peacefully on 19 August 2015, aged 87.

Before his death, he made a final and deeply significant request:

That he be cremated, and that his ashes be buried beside his father at Seskinore.

It was a place he had not known in childhood—
but one that had come to hold meaning in his final years.

Return to Seskinore

In May 2016, that wish was fulfilled.

His ashes were laid in the Garden of Remembrance, beside the grave of his father, Tony Joynson-Wreford, and close to that of Leila McClintock.

For the first time, Patrick became physically part of the place that had once defined his father’s life.

Closing the Circle

Pat’s story came full circle.

A man who had grown up knowing almost nothing of his father—
who had never heard of Seskinore, nor of the McClintock family—
was, in the end, laid to rest at the heart of that history.

Significance

Patrick Joynson-Wreford’s life reflects the fragmentation—and eventual recovery—of family memory.

His search did not simply uncover facts.
It restored connections:

• between father and son
• between past and present
• and between lives long separated by silence

His return to Seskinore, even in death, marks one of the final and most poignant chapters in the story of the estate.

👉 See also:

• A Reunion Across Time: Patrick and Xenia Joynson-Wreford (2004)
• Tony Joynson-Wreford: Final Years
• The Rediscovery of Tony Joynson-Wreford
• Xenia and the Rediscovery of Seskinore
• The Garden of Remembrance
• Return to Seskinore (2008): Memory, Restoration and Reunion