This was the home of the Rushout family until the 20th century. After a period of use as a drug rehabilitation centre, the house suffered fire damage and was vacated. Now it has been renovated and converted into apartments.
Northwick Park, a wonderful 16th Century mansion house, once owned by the Spencer Churchill Family. It has been split into apartments and over 70 families now live on the estate. Image: Pritchard and Company.
An opportunity has arisen with Pritchard & Company to buy an apartment within Grade I listed Northwick Park, at Blockley, in Gloucestershire, for £1.1 million. The country house is the former family seat of the Rushout family, the Barons Northwick.
Northwick Park belonged to the Childe family from about 1320 to 1683. The estate was bought by Sir James Rushout, the son of a Flemish merchant who had made a fortune in London, in 1683, who remodelled the old house in 1686.
The next remodelling was completed by Sir John Rushout, 4th Baronet, in 1728-30 to a design by Lord Burlington complete with a Palladian east front and entrance hall in the 1730s.
Until 1931, Northwick Park and its parish of Blockley were part of Worcestershire. It is now situated in Gloucestershire. Image: Pritchard and Company.
The 5th Baronet, later 1st Baron Northwick, employed architect John Woolfe to carry out further improvements in the 1770s and William Eames to landscape the parkland. It passed down the family line, with a further remodelling in 1828-30, until George Rushout, 3rd Baron Northwick, whose widow, Augusta, left the estate to her grandson, Captain George-Spencer Churchill in 1912.
In World War II Northwick Park was heavily used by the US Army, with the full support of Captain Spencer Churchill. They built a hospital on the adjoining site called the cinquefoil (now the Northwick Business Centre) and after the war, from 1948 to 1965, this became one of the largest Polish refugee camps in the country. Image: Polish Resettlement Camps.When Augusta died in 1912 her grandson Captain George Spencer Churchill (1876-1964) inherited the estate and moved to Northwick Park. He gave unstinting support over a period of fifty years to the parish of Blockley. During his tenure, his cousin Winston Churchill was a frequent visitor to Northwick Park. Image: Polish Resettlement Camps.
Northwick Park remained the property of the Spencer Churchill family until 1966, when it was finally sold to a syndicate headed by the Hon Michael Pearson, then the 22-year-old heir of Viscount Cowdray, one of Britain’s leading landowners. He paid close to £1 million for the estate, but had no intention of living here. “We shall have to decide what we do with the house,” he said at the time, “It will be looked after by the estate agents and run as an investment.” It actually became a drug rehabilitation centre and was later damaged by fire.
Northwick Park fell into decline and was empty from 1976 until the early 1980s. The house was then bought by developers who got permission for rebuilding the mansion and surrounding historic area, in the first phase of the development of the estate as it is today. Other development companies completed the work, adding the houses of William Emes Garden, Julianas Court, Churchill Square, John Woolfe Court and The Lodge. The Estate was taken over from Clarendon, the final development company, in 2003 by Northwick Park Ltd and thus passed into the joint ownership of the residents.
In 1832-34 Lord Northwick built a picture Gallery, designed by Richard Hulls, to house his large art collection at the north-east corner of the main house. The Northwick collection of pictures and works of art was later dispersed in an historic sale at Christies in 1965 which attracted worldwide interest. Image: Polish Resettlement Camps.Northwick Park was featured in Nicholas Kingsley’s book ‘The Country Houses of Gloucestershire – Volume 2’ in 1992. This image showed the west front which had survived largely unaltered from Sir James Rushout’s remodelling of the house in about 1686. According to Kingsley, “It could be an early essay in William Talman’s astylar manner.” Image: Nicholas Kingsley.The east front of Northwick Park is largely seen as the creation of Lord Burlington for Sir John Rushout in 1728-30, but incorporates two pre-existing towers, while the shaped gables were put on about 1788-1804. Image: Nicholas Kingsley.Another image from ‘The Country Houses of Gloucestershire – Volume 2’. “A distressing photograph of the entrance hall into which the house sank prior to its restoration in the 1980s and 1990s, with chimneypieces and doorcases stolen or damaged by vandals. Image: Nicholas Kingsley.
The apartment in question is known as 3, The Mansion, and approached through the grand reception room of the main house, The Hall by Lord Burlington with marble floor, Inigo Jones style ceiling and a fine pedimented Corinthian doorcase leading to a circular inner hall featuring a fine cantilevered staircase reputedly by John Woolfe. The impressive gallery landing gives access to the private entrance to the apartment.
The principal room of the apartment is the fine drawing room with dedicated study and kitchen areas enjoying a westerly aspect and forming the main façade of the house. It boasts a central fireplace with impressive chimney piece, and panelled walls featuring a Vitruvian scroll design.
The master bedroom, housed in one of the distinctive bays on the north elevation, provides a substantial and most impressive bedroom suite with dressing cupboard and en suite shower room.
The south wing of the apartment provides versatile living accommodation with a further double aspect reception room, currently a sitting room, and two additional guest bedroom suites.
Each of the rooms has deep sash windows providing wonderful proportions and some have magnificent views across the parkland. There is also a luxurious bathroom with a traditional roll-top bath. In addition the property benefits from substantial secure cellarage and an excellent double en bloc garage within the grounds.
Note
Blockley lies some three miles north-west of Moreton-in-Marsh, in Gloucestershire. If you think you’ve seen the church and 15th century vicarage before, that could be because they appear in each episode of ‘Father Brown’, the BBC TV series, loosely based on GK Chesterton’s novels. Filming also takes place around the village, which doubles as the fictional Cotswold village of Kembleford.
Northwick Park, Blockley, Gloucestershire. Image: Pritchard and Company.Northwick Park, Blockley, Gloucestershire. Image: Pritchard and Company.Northwick Park, Blockley, Gloucestershire. Image: Pritchard and Company.According to Nicholas Kingsley, the main staircase of 1828-30, which occupies a top-lit circular well at the centre of the house, replaced one damaged by fire. Image: Pritchard and Company.
This country house is no stranger to fire. It was still unfinished in 1913 when suffragettes set it ablaze. Elms Cross House became the Granby Hotel and was later destroyed by fire for a second time.
Granby House, Wiltshire. For many this is still known as Elms Cross House. Image: Knight Frank.
Situated in idyllic countryside, this substantial family home sits at Westwood, moments from the market town of Bradford-on-Avon, in Wiltshire, within lovely gardens and grounds.
Granby House was originally commissioned by quarry master, builder, and stone merchant, Isaac Jones, built at the turn of the 20th Century and is not listed. It is currently on the market at Knight Frank with a guide price of £2.95 million.
The property was once Elms Cross House, which had been built in 1908, by Isaac Jones at a cost of over £18,000. It was still unfinished when, in June 1913, it was completely gutted by fire. Suspicion at the time rested with the Suffragettes and firemen were unable to save the house due to an absolute lack of water. At the time they depended entirely for their supply on a three-quarter-inch tap in outbuildings.
This photograph appeared in the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser in November 1922. It was taken shortly after the interior was destroyed by fire in 1913. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
The bare walls of the house became a landmark of the countryside but, in November 1922, Mr Charles William Darbishire, whose firm had business interests in the Far East, and was the newly-elected MP for Westbury, bought the abandoned property. The plans for the house were drawn up by Walter Wadman Snailum of Trowbridge.
Charles William Darbishire (1875 – 1925 . By Walter Stoneman, bromide print, 1922.
Darbishire had the building restored as his permanent residence. A few years later, however, both he and his wife died within a short time of each other. The house continued as a private residence before it became the Harrogate Hotel in 1939. It was named after the Yorkshire town from which the company had relocated after its hotel was requisitioned by the Government. The northern hotel had been called the Granby and after a while the Harrogate Hotel was also renamed as the Granby Hotel.
“As your car comes to rest on the gravelled drive, a butler appears to see to you and your luggage; no matter what the season, the sweet smell of flowers assails you from the forty acres of grounds. The hotel ‘office’ as such is non-existent, but there is a quiet, efficient direction behind the scenes. The chef, whom you may remember from the Granby at Harrogate, is an adept at his job; here at the Bradford-on-Avon version of the Granby, you will find the comfort and calm of country house life, with the additional convenience of a free car to whisk you into Bath if the mood dictates.
” But there is one snag. There are only twelve rooms, as against the two hundred at Harrogate.”
The Granby Hotel. This photograph was taken in 1939. Ashley Courtenay in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News said; “A fine specimen of Cotswold domestic architecture where, with the exception of the hotel signboard, there is nothing to suggest an hotel.” Image: The British Newspaper Archive.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.
However, in August 1947, the building was gutted by fire for a second time. Once again, firemen were baffled by a complete lack of water supply until a relay pump system had been established between the burning hotel and the canal at Bradford-on-Avon, about a mile away. The fire had started in the linen room on an upper floor at the rear of the premises.
In November 1947, Mr William Gerald Holbrow, a timber merchant, purchased the Elms Cross estate, including the remains of the Granby Hotel. The building was restored as a private residence, once again known as Elms Cross House, but was put up for sale in the 1950s. In recent times the house has been used as a luxury bed and breakfast, known as Granby House Hotel, but now closed.
The Granby Hotel caught fire again on a Saturday night in August 1947. Dinner was being served at the hotel when suddenly the cry of ‘fire’ swept through the building, a member of staff having discovered that the linen room on an upper floor was ablaze. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.Granby House, Wiltshire. Image: Knight Frank.
Parts of Grade II listed Ripple Hall date back from the 1400s with a front elevation added in the 18th century and later Victorian additions.
Ripple Hall, Ripple, Worcestershire. The house is situated in a conservation area next to the Grade I listed, 12th Century St Mary’s Church. Image: Andrew Grant.
The house appears to have been rebuilt about 1780-1790 for Fleetwood Parkhurst, who died in 1801, and whose widow, Anne, stayed on until 1818. Parkhust was descended from Bishop Parkhurst, the celebrated author of the Hebrew and English Lexicon.
His son, also named Fleetwood, was a Rugby and Oxford contemporary of Walter Savage Landor, the writer, poet and activist, a regular visitor to the house during his parent’s time. It appears that while affection grew between Landor and the old squire, he did not always hit it off with the son.
The son, Fleetwood Parkhurst, was a clergyman and became Rector of Epsom as well as a man of property. He retired to Ripple Hall but died in 1844 while walking in Cheltenham after ‘a visitation from God’. In a letter from Landor, his opinion of his old companion was not altogether favourable. “I am shocked and grieved at his death. A happier one, however, there could not be.”
From the Gloucestershire Chronicle in March 1845. The sale of the first portion of valuable effects belonging to the Rev Fleetwood Parkhurst. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.Ripple Hall, Ripple, Worcestershire. The property is of such significance that it is noted in Pevsner’s ‘The Buildings of England’. Image: Andrew Grant.
In 1847, the house was occupied by John Christopher Dowdeswell, a barrister-at-law, the second son of John Edmund Dowdeswell, a Senior Master of the High Court of Chancery. It is possible that Dowdeswell had tenanted Ripple Hall. He died three years later, in 1850, but the house had been in the hands of John William Empson since 1848.
Empson, also of Yokefleet Hall, Howden, was a large landowner in the East Riding of Yorkshire and a Justice of the Peace. He died in 1893 but had spent considerably more time in Yorkshire than in Worcestershire. In 1887, the house appears to have been tenanted by another Dowdeswell, this time Arthur Christopher Dowdeswell. Empson’s wife, Ellen Georgina, long since removed from Ripple Hall, died at Kiltermain In Ireland in 1908.
At the turn of the 20th century, Ripple Hall was in the hands of his widow, Ellen Georgina Empson, but she appears to have been living at Kiltermain in Ireland. The house was briefly occupied by Captain Freeman and afterwards by John Ripley. It was sold in 1907, a year before Ellen Empson died.
The new owner of Ripple Hall was Miss A. J. Behrens, who remained until 1931. It passed to Edward F. Gray, the son of the Reverend Edward Gray of Wembley Park, Middlesex, and Donnington Hall at Ledbury. He had been educated at Haileybury and Oriel College, Oxford, and was in the Consular service for thirty years before retiring to Ripple Hall.
In 1930, Miss Behrens decided to part with Ripple Hall. This advertisement appeared in The Tewkesbury Register and Agricultural Gazette. She moved out the following year. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
In World War One he had been in Consul in Oslo and Bergen in Norway. From 1922 up until his retirement he served in America, being Consul-General at Boston for the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island.
Gray died in 1960 and Ripple Hall was bought by Mr and Mrs Hugo Baldwin Huntington-Whiteley.
There are many examples of beautiful 18th century decorative fittings and architecture still present including fine ceilings and cornicing, sash windows and shutters, an original staircase to the first floor, wooden parquet flooring and original fireplaces which are all in working order. Image: Andrew Grant.
The house has similar characteristics to Ham Court and several houses in nearby Upton-upon-Severn. It has a five-window range with full-height curved bows to the east and west end walls. At one time the house had been covered in ivy, thoughtfully removed by Miss Behrens during her tenure.
Ripple Hall is on the market at Andrew Grant with a guide price of £2.25 million.
Ripple Hall, Ripple, Worcestershire. Image: Andrew Grant.Ripple Hall, Ripple, Worcestershire. Image: Andrew Grant.Ripple Hall, Ripple, Worcestershire. Image: Andrew Grant.Ripple Hall, Ripple, Worcestershire. Image: Andrew Grant.The house is next to the Grade I listed, 12th Century St Mary’s Church. Image: Andrew Grant.
In August, 1947, the Leamington Spa Courier announced that the executors of the late Sir Wathen Waller had instructed a Birmingham firm of auctioneers to offer for sale the remainder of the Woodcote estate situated at Leek Wootton, between Kenilworth and Warwick. The estate comprised a stone-fronted mansion, surrounded by charming grounds, the Home Farm, woodlands, and a number of cottages extending in all to about 253 acres.
Grade II listed Woodcote House was built in Elizabethan-style in 1861 and extended in 1869 on the site of an earlier house. Designed by John Gibson, it was built in Jacobean style for Henry Christopher Wise. The Wise family once owned Warwick Priory, which was dismantled and removed to America. A member of the Wise family was head gardener to Charles I, a position of some importance.
In 1864, All Saints’ Church, Leek Wootton, was thoroughly repaired and an open roof, the gift of the late Henry Christopher Wise, was erected; there was also a memorial to his three sons. In 1897, carved choir stalls were installed by Lady Waller as a memorial to her husband, the late General Sir George Waller, 3rd Baronet, and a chancel screen was erected in 1930 in memory of Captain Sir Francis Waller, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, killed in action in 1914.
The Wallers came of fighting stock. One of their ancestors captured the Duke of Orleans, at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, when Henry V conferred honours upon him.
In 1947, the executors of Sir Wathen Waller sold Woodcote House to Warwick Rural District Council for £25,654 to be used as a police headquarters. Following a conversion costing £60,000 Woodcote became the headquarters of the Warwickshire Constabulary in 1949. The house is linked to the east to significant 1960s/70s buildings developed as part of the Warwickshire Police headquarters.
The new house of 1861 was built in practically the same position as an older house with stables, farm buildings and a kitchen garden in much the same place. The gardens and pleasure grounds were re-arranged, a reservoir built and five acres of the park were taken to enlarge the garden. Constructed with locally quarried stone, which like most Warwickshire sandstone, it is soft and crumbly. Image: Archiseek.Woodcote House, Warwickshire, in the 1900s. Image: Our Warwickshire.Woodcote House, Leek Wootton, Warwickshire. Image: GVA.
If stones could speak, Highhead Castle, at Ivegill, Cumbria, would have a tale to tell, one in which romance and pathos, were blended in a chronicle of a man’s bitter disappointment.
Henry Richmond Brougham, had a new facade built in 1744-48. It is eleven bays long, with a pedimented three-bay centre, and a walled front garden with coupled Ionic columns. Image: Lost Heritage.
Today, the remains of the real castle, built more than six centuries ago are almost non-existent. The Castle was here when the Richmond family became owners in Tudor times and added a West Wing to the old fortified mansion.
A century later a fortunate marriage brought Catterlen Hall to the Richmonds and here, too, they left a memorial of themselves in the fine 17th century wing of that fascinating house.
By 1716 both properties were ruled over by the widow of Christopher Richmond. Ruled was the right word for Isabella Miller – she took a second husband – was a matriarch who ruled with a rod of iron and gave no quarter.
Of her family of eleven, only the daughters married. The one son who grew to manhood died at the age of 26 in 1716, and his mother – who mourned him deeply – was faced with the problem of the disposal of the two estates after her death. She had many descendants from whom to choose, and eventually the lot fell upon her grandson, Henry Richmond Brougham, whom she hoped to make head of a new line at Highhead.
Her will was framed to this end, but its provisions spelt ruin to Highhead Castle in the end.
Highhead Castle was originally occupied by the Kings Castle in the Forest of Inglewood, the earliest written record of the original castle is from 1272. Image: Lost Heritage.
At the time, Henry Richmond Brougham was 17, and the old lady disposed of Highhead in this way. One half was to be enjoyed by her unmarried daughter, Susanna Richmond, for her life, and the other half Susanna was to have until Henry Richmond Brougham came of age. In the event of his dying unmarried his half was to revert to Susanna.
Isabella Miller died in 1739, the year before her grandson came of age. If she had had dreams for him, so had Susanna Richmond, his aunt, who found that the boy’s uncle, John Brougham, of Scales Hall, Skelton, was equally anxious that Henry Richmond Brougham should reign happy and glorious at Highhead. Nothing but a complete rebuilding of the old castle would do.
Down came the two 14th century towers, leaving only the Tudor wing standing. To this was added an 18th century house, at a cost of £10,000 – a very large sum in the days of its construction when masons were paid 10d a day. ¹
The north front of Highhead Castle. The house was largely destroyed by fire in 1956. Image: Country Life.Looking across the valley towards Highhead Castle. Image: Country Life.
It is said that John Brougham had spent some time in Italy and acquired a passion for Italian designs and workmanship. It is certain that he brought over Italian craftsmen to carry out ceilings, cornices, and other plasterwork. In a tantalising reference, William Jackson, writing in 1874, spoke of the “traditional gossip” about the foreign craftsmen, which still lingered in the district. As the work neared completion, Henry Richmond Brougham, by now 30, was chosen as High Sheriff of Cumberland. To support him in this dignity, his uncle made over to him four estates – no doubt with a hint that they were to be handed back when the year of office was over.
Fate stepped in at this point and death claimed Henry Richmond Brougham before the year was ended. The work at Highhead was suspended, and the building operations never resumed.
The four estates passed to the young man’s legal heir, who, to quote Mr Jackson, “did not recognise the property of returning them” to John Brougham.
Highhead and Catterlen now became the property of Susanna Richmond for life. While she lived all was yet well. She lived in state at Highhead and enjoyed the good things in life. In the 1870’s there still remained at Greystoke Castle some of the ale brewed at Highhead and given by Susanna to the then Duke of Norfolk. It was said to have been a drink fit for kings.
The corridor at Highhead Castle looking east. Originally a medieval tower, the castle which was enlarged in 1550 and remodelled in 1748. Image: Country Life.A Venetian window in the upper corridor at Highhead Castle. Image: Country LIfe.The drawing room at Highhead Castle. Image: Country Life.
Miss Susanna lived on until 1774, when she died at the age of 87. She had the power of disposing of Catterlen and left it to her niece. Mrs Curwen, of Workington Hall.
Highhead, on the contrary, now passed under complicated terms of her mother’s will and the trouble began. The old lady had never envisaged the untimely end of her grandson. He was to have shared one half of the house with his aunt, on whose death he would be entitled to the other half.
Now, however, the ownership of the Castle was divided into two halves and each half into fourths. In the end, none of the owners occupied the Castle, and from 1774 it was deserted except that estate tenants could use some of the rooms as store rooms and granaries.
Writing in 1794, William Hutchinson said “the swallows and jackdaws have now been its only tenants for many years, and it is doubtful the whole fabric will be suffered to go to wreck.”
The divided ownership was the curse of the Castle. Legal squabbles were kept up until the owners of one half at length decided to pull down that portion and sell the materials. The work of destruction had indeed begun but was stayed by the sale of that half about 1820 to Henry Brougham, later to be Lord Chancellor, who eventually bought the other half and so became owner of the whole.
Whellan, writing in 1860, said: “There was formerly a good deal of carved woodwork about the building, but this has been removed to Brougham Hall.” About this time the house was repaired and was let as a farmhouse. ²
The second Lord Brougham carried out more repairs between 1868 and 1874. His son and successor sold Highhead Castle – still used as a farmhouse – in November 1902, to Judge Herbert Augustus Hills for £18,000. From the judge it passed to the Right Hon John Waller Hills, became tenanted, and he sold it to Colonel Alan Dower, MP, on whose instructions it was offered for sale in June 1950.
Looking towards the gates of the forecourt at Highhead Castle. Image: Country Life.Looking over the terraces towards Highhead Castle from the north-east. Image: Country Life.Looking through the trees towards Highhead Castle. Image: Country Life.
In August 1950, the Ministry of Town and Country Planning announced that Highhead Castle had been scheduled as a building of special architectural and historic interest.
On Tuesday, December 12, 1956, Highhead Castle, now owned by Mr Gordon Robinson, a Penrith butcher, had been away with his wife on business. On their return they found the 30-roomed Georgian mansion on fire, their three small children having been rescued and taken to safety in a neighbouring farmhouse.
The alarm had been raised after farmers saw smoke billowing from a bedroom window. When firemen arrived only the small wing where the family lived was burning. A Cumberland News reporter said: “In no time at all the wind had driven the flames to another room, then there was no stopping the raging inferno as flames and smoke swirled in the rain. It was a terrible sight as scores of villagers and helpers were told to keep back out of danger, while firemen risked their necks to fight the blaze from inside the castle.”
A split-second saved one fireman as he ran down the main staircase to the main hall. A heavy red-hot beam dropped inches behind him, setting the staircase alight. Other firemen and helpers ran from the house.
The roof began to break in with dull, monotonous cracks, and turntables were brought out to fight the fire from above. Flames were swirling all around the firemen as they carried hoses to the top of the turntables. “They stood out like ghosts in the glare, against the charred black background of the castle walls.” Glass splintered in all directions, bursting with intense heat, as firemen continued to pump water 400 yards from the River Ive all through the night.
A rare photograph of the fire at Highhead Castle in 1956. This picture appeared in the Penrith Observer. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
Jim Templeton was a firefighter on that December night in 1956 and said the conditions were terrible. It was so windy that one of his colleagues was blown off a ladder. The fire was well alight when they arrived and there was little they could do to save the house. Jim had a lucky escape himself, he said that a heavy iron bath fell through the house as the timbers became sodden with water and almost landed on him. ³
Now only the outer walls and cellars remain. The magnificent terraced gardens are also in need of a lot of work, but the facade of the house is pretty much intact.
Highhead Castle survived demolition and has been on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register. A unique opportunity now exists to carry on with the good work that has already commenced in the preservation of the property. Image: Savills.
An application was made in 1985 to demolish the remains which was defeated after a public inquiry. Christopher Terry (1938-2016), who also owned Brougham Hall near Penrith, bought Highhead Castle just as it was about to be demolished. In fact, he said, he was given an hour’s notice and shot up to the house just in time to save it.
In November 2018, Highhead Castle is on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register, classified ‘A’, being the highest priority. With support from Historic England and the Country Houses Foundation, emergency stabilisation works have been completed and an options appraisal has been produced to help secure a viable and sustainable long-term use. It is currently on the market at Savills with offers wanted over £250,000.
Notes:- ¹ The Classical House was built for the Brougham family between 1744-49, from the same red Lazonby sandstone as the gorge below it and is thought to have been designed by renowned architect James Gibbs.
² What happened to the woodwork which Lord Chancellor Brougham took from Highhead to Brougham Hall? Presumably it was among the 5000 square feet of linen fold and Jacobean oak panelling which was sold at Brougham Hall on July 18, 1934, before the house was abandoned. On that day, 730 square feet of oak linen fold panelling in the dining room were sold to a London buyer for £130, and a screen of Italian workmanship from the Armoury was sold for £30 to Mr Eugene Andrews. This screen was relocated to St John’s Church in Girvan. It may have come from Highhead Castle or have been bought from the Continent by Lord Chancellor Brougham, who bought many treasures during his frequent trips abroad.
³ BBC Radio Cumbria. May 20, 2006.
⁴ The Classical House, northern garden wall and Tudor West Wing are all separately listed Grade II* and the servants wing and piers to the end of the drive are both listed Grade II.
There is little more seductive than a grand, yet not overbearing country house. Once known as Vale Lodge, in the reign of George I, this property was the scene of Royal feasting.
Image: Knight Frank.
In 1849, a ‘modern house’ was put up for sale in the village of Winkfield in Berkshire. ‘The residence is approached by a carriage drive sweep with lawn, flower garden, orchard and meadow. It contains eight bedrooms and dressing rooms, drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, two staircases and a stone entrance’.
Vale Lodge had not long been built, supposedly rebuilt using the structure of a hunting lodge on the Windsor Castle estate. 169 years later, the country house, now known as The Vale, no longer stands on Royal land, and is up for sale for the first time in 22 years.
Image: Knight Frank.
The house appears to have fallen into the hands of Isaiah Linwood Verity, a Major in the 92nd Highlanders, whose desperate suicide at Brompton in 1849, may have prompted the house sale the same year. The house probably didn’t sell because his son, Charles Felix Verity, soon to become a Major in 2nd (South) Middlesex Corps, later lived here.
And so, Vale Lodge, in Berkshire hunting country and close to Ascot Racecourse, proved to be a popular house. Often tenanted, its notable residents including Warine B. M. Lysley, a director of the County and General Gas Company and Bombay Gas Company, and The Hon. Arthur Henry John Walsh, Politician and Lord-Lieutenant, and later 3rd Baron Ormathwaite.
Image: Knight Frank.
Vale Lodge, with its painted stucco, was extended in the late 19th century, probably with the addition of its portico flanked by Corinthian pillars, but appears remarkably unchanged, except for the addition of an outdoor swimming pool.
Grade II listed, The Vale is on sale at Knight Frank with a guide price of £3.5 million.
Miller Christy devoted his life to research and literature. He built himself a replica Tudor house, all its details taken from old Tudor houses in Essex.
Broomswood Manor, Chignal St James, Essex. Image: Savills.
Appearances can be deceptive. Broomswood Manor, at Chignal St James, looks like a 17th century house, but was designed by Frederick Rowntree at the turn of the 20th century. It was built in 1912-13 for Miller Christy, the historian, and was known as Broomswood Lodge, with leaded-light windows, herringbone brickwork with exposed timbers under a tiled roof, and fine shafted chimneys.
Miller Christy (1861-1928), a bachelor, was an authority on archaeology and ornithology in Essex. He was an inexhaustible writer – ‘The Birds of Essex’, ‘Trade Signs of Essex’, ‘Manitoba Described’, ‘Essex Rivers and their Names’, ‘The Genus Primula of Essex’, ‘Our Empire’, ‘History of Banking in Essex’ and the ambiguously titled ‘A Museum of Fire-Making Appliances’. If writing books was not enough, he was a regular contributor to ‘The Essex Review’.
He might have been an illustrious writer, but a businessman he was not. He co-founded Hayman, Christy and Lilly, printers of London, which spectacularly failed, leading him into bankruptcy and was the cause of a nervous breakdown in 1920.
Christy gave up Broomswood Manor and moved to London where he died eight years later.
Robert Miller Christy (1861-1928) died at Middlesex Hospital in London after an operation. As well as being a naturalist and archaeologist, he was the curator of the Museum of Fire-Making Appliances. In his house he displayed a collection of fire furniture in use before the days of modern grates. Image: Goldhanger in the Past.Broomswood Manor, Chignal St James, Essex. Image: Savills.
The house was bought by Major Charles E. Hodges and his wife, who remained until 1925, and later passed to Major Gerald V.N. Riley (1897-1953).
Charles Hodges giving away his daughter Joan Eileen Walker Hodges to Wilfred Sutton Page – June 1925 – Image: Essex Record Office.
Its most notable owner turned out to be Edmund Ironside, son of Field Marshal William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside, a senior officer in the British Army, who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the first year of World War Two.
Edmund Oslac Ironside, 2nd Baron Ironside (born 1924) sat in the Lords from 1959 but lost his seat because of the House of Lords Act 1999, when all but ninety-two hereditary peers lost their right to sit in the house. Prior to this, he had gained the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy in 1943 before retiring from the military in 1952. He later worked at Marconi Ltd, English Electric Leo Computers, Cryosystems and International Research and Development. He also became a consultant with Rolls-Royce.
Ironside married Audrey Marigold Morgan-Grenville in 1950 and succeeded to the title following the death of his father in 1959. Although living at Broomswood Manor for several years, he is better-known for living at Priory House at Boxstead, in the same county.
From The Tatler, May 1950. The wedding of Miss Audrey Morgan-Grenville, daughter of Col. the Hon. Thomas and Mrs Morgan-Grenville. The bridegroom was an officer of the Senior Service – Lt. the Hon. Edmund Ironside – and the best man, and the sixteen members of the guard of honour, were brother officers. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.Mrs Edmund Ironside was photographed with her two children, Fiona, who was five, and three-year-old Charles, in 1958, in the garden of Broomswood Manor. Her husband, the Hon. Edmund Ironside, was the son of Lord Ironside, whose peerage was created in 1941 to crown his outstanding military career. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
In 2005, after the death of its then-owner, Broomswood Manor stood empty for a year before being sold for £1.1 million. Since then, the house has been restored and enlarged, and in September 2018, it was on sale at Savills with a guide price of £2.6 million.
Broomswood Manor, Chignal St James, Essex. Image: Savills.
Lord Glanely is probably best remembered today as a noted racehorse owner, whose horses won all five Classic races of the British turf. However, he made his money in shipping.
Image: Strutt & Parker.
Exning House was built by Francis Shepheard in 1734 to the design of the mason, Andrews Jelfe. From that time, it was occupied by the principal landowners in the village. It was at the centre of 1 700 acres estate and from the early 19th century was set in an extensive park.
The Shepheard family were wealthy landowners, possessing several manors and much property, sufficiently for the illegitimate daughter of Samuel, the surviving brother of Francis, to be described as an heiress, and win the hand of Charles Ingrham, one of the many sons of Lord Arthur Ingrham of Temple Newsam in Yorkshire.
The front of Exning House, later Glanely Rest, used as an old peoples home before becoming empty. Image: Exning.net.
The estate was sold in 1794 to John Dobede, chairman of the Newmarket Bench and a senior magistrate in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, whose son, Henry F. Dobede, restored and enlarged the hall. In 1881, the house was auctioned and sold to Mr Fenn of Newmarket, representing the Stewards of the Jockey Club, for £165,000. It was deemed an important purchase, being adjacent to the race-course, and suitable for accommodation purposes. When the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Newmarket for the July meeting in 1882, it was here that they stayed.
Image: Strutt & Parker.
In 1883, Exning House, along with its gardens and grounds, was let to Lord and Lady Carcross. They remained until 1891, at which time the Jockey Club put a portion of the Exning estate up for sale, including the mansion itself. The sales catalogue described it as ‘a mansion of handsome and classic design in red brick, with stone facings and Corinthian portico, situate in a finely-wooded park’. At the auction, it sold for £32,500 to Mr Morton, a London solicitor, acting on behalf of Captain Edward W. D. Baird, a retired officer of the 10th Hussars. Baird had a keen interest in horse-racing and was the eventual owner of Woolwinder, which won the St Leger in 1907. He became Major Baird after accepting a temporary rank in the Imperial Yeomanry in 1900, later attaining the rank of Colonel.
Colonel Baird made several improvements at Exning House, but a serious fire in April 1909 damaged the property. The outbreak originated in the upper portion of the new north wing, where, in addition to about twenty servants, the nurseries, governess’s and housekeeper’s apartments were situated. Several rooms were gutted, and so serious was the outlook that a large body of men started removing the valuable contents, completely emptying the house and placing them in the park. The blaze destroyed the north wing, built in 1893 for £15,000, and Colonel Baird and some of his helpers had sustained several injuries. The house was rebuilt using the architect Philip Webb to alter and extend the property in 1896.
Image: Exning.net.
When the Bairds moved to their London home in 1913, the Exning estate was put up for sale and purchased by Lord St. Davids.
Image: Strutt & Parker.William James Tatem, 1st Baron Glanely of St Fagans. Image: Museum-Wales.
William James Tatum, 1st Baron Glanely, a Cardiff shipping magnate, philanthropist, and thoroughbred racehorse owner acquired Exning Hall and the Le Grange Stable in Newmarket sometime before 1920. Born in Devon, the son of Thomas Tatem, who died the year he was born, the young William, aged 12, signed on and sailed on a voyage around the Cape Horn. He later entered the office of a Cardiff shipowner, gradually building up his own business, and was described as ‘a cabin boy to millionaire’. Tatem was created a Baronet in 1916, and two years later rose to the peerage. Between 1919 and his death in 1941, his horses won 6 Newmarket Classic races. In June 1942, after taking a summer house in Weston-Super-Mare, he was killed in a German air raid on the town
After his death, Exning House passed to his nephew, George Cock Gibson of Lanwades Hall in 1948, who put it to use as a home for the elderly, along with a cash donation of £10,000. Known as Glanely Rest, the house was later abandoned until converted into three separate properties.
One of a pair of wrought iron gates leading into Glanely Rest from Windmill Hill. Image: Exning.net.The rear view of Glanely Rest from an old postcard. Image: Exning.net.
Exning House is Grade II* listed because of the rare, almost complete example of a country house by Philip Webb. In September, 2018, it is on sale at Strutt & Parker with a guide price of £1.55 million.
Built on an ‘improbably grand scale’. Two centuries of downsizing has left this country house a pale comparison of its magnificent past.
Image: Knight Frank.
If archaeologists were to dig around Haymes, at Cleeve Hill, there is no knowing what unexpected treasures might be found. It was once the site of a Roman settlement; its excellent location no doubt attracting the Hayme family, medieval owners of the land between the 13th and 15th centuries. Later still, it was also the site of Haymes Place, a 16th century mansion built, according to historian Nicholas Kingsley, on an ‘improbably grand scale’.
What we see today are the remnants of the house, virtually unrecognisable from Thomas Robins’ view of 1760. Haymes Place, allegedly modelled on Isaac Ware’s Chesterfield House in London, had a centre of seven bays and two-and-a-half storeys, linked by curved quadrant wings to five by four pavilions.
A drawing by Thomas Robins, 1760, showing the house built for Sir William Strachan that was perhaps never fully fitted out internally. Image: Nicholas Kingsley.
Sir William Strachan had inherited a small sixteenth century house, but after acquiring the Manor of Bishops Cleeve in 1735, he rebuilt it at the centre of his 100-acre estate. Kingsley believes the house was never completed, because by the 1770s Sir William was living in a rented cottage at Hucclecote.
Sir William sold Haymes Place in 1773 to Messrs Thorniloe and Lilley of Worcester. Five years later, the main block had been demolished, along with the quadrants, although the pavilions still survived. (According to auction details from 1921, there was the suggestion that ‘a considerable portion had been destroyed by fire’ about this time). More importantly, it seems that it was now called Haymes Farm, a name that stuck until well into the twentieth century. In 1792, Bigland recorded that ‘Sir William’s elegant mansion house… in a few years was levelled to the ground, and the materials sold’.
Image: Knight Frank.
Haymes Farm and the Bishop Cleeve estates descended by marriage from John Thorniloe, first to the Russell family and then to Sir John Somerset Pakington, 1st Baron Hampton. It is doubtful that he lived here, most likely renting the property to tenants. He sold the estates in 1871 to Joseph Lovegrove, the County Coroner. By the turn of the twentieth century, Haymes Farm was in the hands of William Holliday who might have been responsible for demolishing one of the two surviving pavilions. At some stage, the house was given a large rear extension, including the integration of a re-sited mid-18th century lodge. In 1921, the house was sold to Alfred Newey, a horse-trainer of Cleeve Hill, but most famous for winning the Grand National on Eremon in 1907.
Newey remained until 1933, and by the 1960s it belonged to Peter R.B. Deakin, who ran a mushroom-growing business until 2005. The business was sold and survives today at the nearby Chelbury Mushrooms Farm.
Image: Knight Frank.
Haymes is Grade II listed and currently on the market at Knight Frank with a guide price of £5 million. According to the sales catalogue, it is ‘a beautiful, well-proportioned Georgian family home which has been the subject of a complete renovation’. Maybe so, but having seen comments elsewhere, there is little enthusiasm for the changes by country house followers.
My thanks to historian Nicholas Kingsley for providing the history of the house, much of which is included here, making it much easier to research some of Haymes’ later occupants.
A significant country house re-emerges from obscurity, this prestigious Grade II* listed mansion stands in a parkland setting with far reaching views across the Trent and Witham Valleys.
Image: Savills.
A lot has been said about the views from Harmston Hall, on the Lincoln Cliff overlooking the River Witham. From its parkland, on a clear day, you can see the Derbyshire Hills, some 60 miles or so away. This spectacle is foremost in the estate agent’s selling brief, along with the floors – oak floors, oak floors inlaid with mahogany detailing, and lots of pine floors. Yes. A lot has been made about the wooden floors here.
The oddest thing is that outside the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, not many people have heard of Harmston Hall. The fact that it has re-emerged from obscurity is due to it being offered on the open market at Savills with a guide price of £3.45 million.
The land on which it stands once belonged to the Thorold family, resident here since 1456. The present Queen Anne house was started by Sir Charles Thorold (1655-1709), but it was his younger brother, Sir George Thorold who completed it in about 1710. The mansion became the summer retreat of the Lord Mayor of London, a man who acquired a baronetcy and distinguished title ten years later. Sir George added a tall north front to the house, but this was pulled down in 1892 when the family departed Harmston Hall for good.
The buyer was William Henry Morton, a farmer, magistrate and county alderman, who, in 1892, spent a considerable sum of money altering the house, employing Lincoln architects William Mortimer and his son, William Malkinson Mortimer, to carry out the designs. A new front was created in the same style as the original building, incorporating a new entrance and porch, surmounted by a tower. The roof was stripped of its tiles and recovered in green slate, while new windows were added to the upper storeys. Inside, all the rooms were completely renovated, but despite his extravagance, Morton only stayed at Harmston Hall for six years.
Image: Savills.
The estate was sold in 1898 to Nathaniel Clayton Cockburn, a grandson of Nathaniel Clayton, a Lincoln iron founder. Its new owner was a military man, a Major in the Imperial Yeomanry, who ended up serving in Palestine during World War One. Cockburn died in 1924 and its big rooms briefly became the domain of his sister.
The inevitability was that Harmston Hall was far too big and expensive to maintain. Therefore, it was no surprise when it was sold to the Lincolnshire Board for the Mentally Defective, who opened it as a ‘Colony for Mental Defectives’ in 1935… and consigned the country house to decades of bleak insignificance. Just imagine the despairing shrieks from the inmates echoing through those long corridors. This was a time when Britain wasn’t particularly good at dealing with mental health… many of its occupants probably shouldn’t have been there at all. The hospital was eventually absorbed into the National Health Service (NHS) and buildings spread across the parklands.
Harmston Hall Hospital later became an administrative block and closed for good in 1989.
As always happened, the abandoned hospital was left to decay – broken windows, leaking roof, rotten floors and ceilings – its former institutional use adding to the air of dereliction.
Image: Savills.
Its saviour was Peter Sowerby, a local property developer, who bought the estate in 1996. There were probably those who thought him mad enough to have been one of the hospital’s former residents. However, when Sowerby flattened the hospital outbuildings and built a new housing development, there appeared to be some wisdom attached to him after all. He doubled the population of Harmston and transformed the quiet village into an important commuter settlement for Lincoln.
Decisively, Harmston Hall itself was restored and turned back into a family home over a period of ten years. In 2008, it was on the market for £4.5 million, considerably more than the guide price being asked for today.
There are few signs of its former use. The house is entered through a panelled entrance lobby with stone flooring. This leads into a Reception Hall, complete with Rococo chimneypiece, Georgian fanlight doorways and Ionic columns in front of the staircase. The principal rooms include the main Drawing Room, along with a former Ballroom (complete with the oak flooring and inlaid mahogany detailing). The Dining Room and yellow Sitting Room all have original Queen Anne wooden panelling with pine and oak floors respectively. An ornate Billiards Room is embellished with mahogany panelling, carvings, huge mahogany doors along with decorative cornices, and, of course, more oak flooring. Upstairs there are seven primary bedrooms.
Being a former Historic Formula 1 Champion, it is no surprise that Sowerby has also included garaging for 20 cars. The big difference from its former existence as a country house is the addition of both an indoor and outdoor swimming pool.
The Grade II* listed house stands within 13-acres of land, including a terraced garden with those spectacular views, and a further 30-acres of former parkland available separately.
HOUSE AND HERITAGE 