Aldenham House
The house was built about 1672 for H. Coghill the Younger and was acquired, renovated and extended about 1870 by Hucks Gibbs, 1st Baron Aldenham. In 1932, the estate was sold after the death of its then occupant Vicary Gibbs, a financier, former member of parliament, and avid plant collector who had amassed a larger collection of Chinese flora than the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Gibbs never married, and most of the plant collection was auctioned after his death.
The house and grounds became a country club until the Second World War, when it was requisitioned by the BBC for use as an overseas broadcasting station. After the war the house stood empty until occupied by the Haberdashers' Boys' School in 1961. While building works for the new school were in progress, MGM shot Village of the Damned (1960 film) in front of the house and the 'carry-on' style film Kill or Cure in the entrance hall and on the front lawn. The frontage and grounds have since appeared in a number of episodes of several 1960s television programmes including The Avengers and The Saint.
Aldenham House is a Grade II* listed building.
References
- ^ Audrey Le Lievre (1986). An Account of the Garden at Aldenham House and of Its Makers: Henry Hucks Gibbs, Vicary Gibbs and Edwin Beckett. Garden History, Vol. 14, No. 2. (Autumn, 1986), 173–193.
- ^ Harrison, H. (2012). Plant hunting for Borde Hill. The Plantsman, June 2012, p.93. [1]
- ^ "Aldenham House Garden". Old Haberdashers'Association. Archived from the original on 25 November 2015. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
- ^ "Name: ALDENHAM HOUSE AND STABLE BLOCK List entry Number: 1346891". Historic England. Retrieved 28 December 2015.