Bentworth Hall
| Bentworth Hall | |
|---|---|
 Bentworth Hall in 2012 | |
  Location within Hampshire | |
| General information | |
| Location | Bentworth, Hampshire |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°08′52″N 1°03′00″W / 51.147778°N 1.05°W |
| Completed | 1832 |
Bentworth Hall is a country house in the parish of Bentworth in Hampshire, England west of London between Winchester and Farnham. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Bentworth village green and 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Alton, the nearest town. The previous Bentworth Hall (also known in the past as Bentworth Manor House), now called Hall Place, was built in the early 14th century and is a Grade II listed building 100m South of the village green. The present day Bentworth Hall is surrounded by woodland that was planted during building which started in 1832. This was after Roger Staples Horman Fisher purchased the Bentworth Manor estate in 1832.
1832 - Building the new Bentworth Hall
In 1832, the Bentworth Hall estate of about 500 acres was sold at Garraway’s Coffee House in London by the Fitzherbert family. The Fitzherberts were relatives of Maria Fitzherbert, the (illegal) wife of the Prince Regent, later George IV (illegal because Maria Fitzherbert was a Roman Catholic and banned by Act of Parliament from marrying into the Royal Family).
The Bentworth Hall estate was purchased by Roger Staples Horman Fisher for about £6000.
Horman Fisher then started building the current Bentworth Hall on what was then open downland about 1 km to the south at 51°8′52″N 1°3′0″W / 51.14778°N 1.05000°W, access being from an 800-metre private drive from the Bentworth-Medstead road.[1]
"Heraldic Illustrations" by Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, stated the following about the Horman-Fisher family. Capitals and abbreviations are as in the original:
"ROGER STAPLES HORMAN-FISHER, Esq., of Bentworth Hall, eldest son of the late Robert Fisher, Esq. of the Inner Temple, and of Mitcham, Surrey, by Mary, his second wife, dau. of Charles Staples, Esq. of London, by Mary, his wife, dau. and heir of Baron Butz, a German noble, bears a quartered shield, FISHER and HORMAN, and an escutcheon of pretence for HORMAN, in right of his wife, Elizabeth, dau. and heir of John Horman, Esq. of Finchley." (See BURKE’s Landed Gentry, Supplemental Volume.)
It would appear that proof reading in those days was not very good, because under the Horman-Fisher crest, Bentworth is spelled "Brereworth", and the heading of the extract quoted above says "Fisher, of Bentworth Hall, Hants" omitting the name "Horman" which in one copy has been added in pencil.
1848 - Sale of Bentworth Hall Estate
In 1848 the Bentworth Hall estate was sold to Jeremiah Robert Ives, including the Old Manor House (now Hall Place) and the more recent 1832-built Bentworth Hall.[2] The sale catalogue dated 16 July 1848 [3] includes the following rather exaggerated description:
"A handsome newly erected Elizabethan mansion of unique elevation with wall garden, elegant conservatory and stabling. The mansion is built in the most substantial manner and finished without reference to expense, by the proprietor for his own residence. The walls are constructed almost entirely of BLACK FLINT (emphasised in capitals in the original), carefully and minutely cut and smoothed at an incalculable cost, with Stone Cornices, mullions &C blending a beautiful and unique specimen of workmanship with a sutability and durability impenetrable to every change of atmosphere. Six airy and cheerful Family Bedrooms, spacious landing and a broad light principle (sic) staircase leads to the Ground Floor on which is another water closet. This floor comprises a neat vestibule, with a porch at the North-west entrance for the carriage road; a handsome inner hall; surrounded by a library and a breakfast room, elegant drawing room 23 ft by 18 ft. A handsome dining room of the same size, all 12 feet high finished with expensive cornices, handsome modern marble chimney pieces and other decorations."
Later 19th Century
Robert Ives died in 1865 and the estate passed to his widow Emma [4]. The Ives family later included George Cecil Ives who lived for a time at Bentworth Hall. George Cecil Ives (d 1950) met Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in London, publishing books on history and homosexuality.
In 1890, Emma's son, Colonel Gordon Maynard Gordon-Ives built and lived in Gaston Grange, about 1.2 km to the East of Bentworth Hall.
In 1897, Emma Ives died and ownership of the Bentworth Hall estate passed to Colonel Gordon-Ives who continued to live at Gaston Grange.
Early 20th Century
Colonel Gordon-Ives rented Bentworth Hall to W. G. Nicholson [5], a Member of Parliament. Colonel Gordon-Ives died on 8 September 1907 and the estate passed to his son, Cecil Maynard Gordon-Ives, a Captain in the Scots Guards in the 1914-18 war, who occupied it until his death on 23 July 1923.[6] The Bentworth Hall Estate, then of 479 acres, was offered for sale by John D Wood & Co of 6 Mount St London W1 on 19 July 1924. [7]
It was offered for sale (by then 462 acres) on 26 June 1930, by direction of A d’A Willis who presumably purchased it in 1924. [8] The purchaser was probably Major John Arthur Pryor who is recorded as living at Bentworth Hall in the 1930s. [9]
World War II
At the beginning of the war, the Bentworth Hall estate was taken over by the military together with other local large houses and estates such as Gaston Grange and Thedden Grange.
In 1941 Bentworth Hall was occupied by a unit of the the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation (MNBDO) as an outpost of Haslar Naval Hospital. The bedrooms were the wards and there was a doctor’s office upstairs. [10]
Later, other organisations were there because in the woods there is a carving of "48 CDO" on one of the trees. This refers to the UK 48 Marine Commando [11] which presumably had a unit at Bentworth Hall before deploying abroad for operations.
In 1944 before D-day, Bentworth Hall was occupied by US and maybe other personnel. A swimming pool had been put in, also two cookhouses and a water tower. Huts in the woods were for accommodation although some officers lived in the Hall itself. The cornfield to the SW was an airstrip with 3 L4 light aircraft (the US Army version of the Piper Cub - [12] which the Colonel used to fly to the airfield at Lasham. This information came from Michael (Mick) Lennox, ex US Army, who visited Bentworth Hall from his home in New York on 6 June 1994 (the date of D-Day 50 years earlier). Lennox said that he had been accommodated in one of the huts in the woods before D-day and on walking round the woods, he located where his bed-space would have been.
In the woods there are carvings on the trees which include "US Army" and various symbols. There are also remains of the concrete bases on which the huts would have stood, the remains of a brick building, maybe an ablution block, and a concrete cover on top of what was a junction in the sewerage system from the huts (see the pictures).
After the War
An ordnance disposal unit operated in the corner of the wood near the field to the south, towards Colliers Wood. Ordnance was taken to the hollow or "dell" in the field and detonated there. [13]
In 1947, the Bentworth Hall estate was bought by Major Herbert Cecil Benyon Berens, who was a director of Hambros bank in London from 1968.[14] In 1950, Major Berens built two new lodge houses at the junction of the drive to Bentworth Hall with the main road through the village towards Medstead. He also built an extension to the south of the centre of Bentworth Hall itself, matching the squared flint of the main building, and this was known as the "Garden Rooms", compare the photos of the south side in 1910 and 1985.
Over the next few years, much of the Bentworth Hall estate land was sold to local farms, reducing the remaining estate to about 70 acres. Some clearing of trees and hedges produced larger fields that were easier to crop.
Major Berens died at Bentworth Hall on 27 October 1981 [15]and after this the remaining estate was put up for sale.[16] It was first offered as a single property and then as several, Bentworth Hall and its outbuildings being divided into five separate "dwelling units" which is the position today.
References
- ^ Smith, Georgia (June 1988). Bentworth: the making of a Hampshire village. Bentworth Parochial Church Council. pp. 52–55. ISBN 978-0-9513653-0-4. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
- ^ Burke, Bernard (1858). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland. Harrison. p. 618. Retrieved 15 February 2012.
- ^ copy in Hampshire record office
- ^ Pevsner notes
- ^ caption on photo of Bentworth Hall dated about 1905
- ^ Inscription on the Gordon-Ives grave in Bentworth Churchyard
- ^ Source - Sale document
- ^ Country Life. Country Life, Ltd. 1978. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
- ^ http://thepeerage.com/p19631.htm#i196301
- ^ Source: statement by N Crabb, ex Royal Marine, living in Poole, who visited Bentworth Hall in 1990
- ^ http://gallery.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/Royal+Marine+Commando+Units/48+RM+Cdo/
- ^ http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=332
- ^ evidence from locals who were young people at the time, particularly K V Elliott who ran a business at the old Bentworth rail station NE of the village
- ^ Grossman, David (1972). Who's Who in British Finance. R. R. Bowker Co. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
- ^ www.stats.cricketworld.com/Players/209/209045/209045.htm
- ^ "Obituaries in 1981". ESPN. Retrieved 14 February 2012.