Langleybury
Langleybury is a country house and estate in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, England, situated 2 miles north of the town of Watford on a low hill above the valley of the River Gade.
Contents
Owners
Raymond 1711–1756
The estate was purchased in 1711 by Robert Raymond, then Solicitor General and later Attorney General, subsequently Baron Raymond, who was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 1724 until 1732.[1]
In 1720 he demolished the original house, of which little is known, and built a mansion which still stands on the site today. A park was laid out around the house in the later eighteenth century. His cipher, a griffin in a crown, can still be seen on the building.
Filmer 1756–1838
On the death of his son, Robert Raymond, 2nd Baron Raymond, without issue in 1756, the manor was left to Sir Beversham Filmer, 5th Baronet, of East Sutton, Kent.[2] He, dying unmarried in 1763, bequeathed it to his nephew, Sir John Filmer (7th Bt[2]). It then descended in the family till 1838.[1] The Filmers were absentee landlords.
In 1762 the road at the lower edge of the park became the Sparrows Herne turnpike, and in the 1790s the Grand Junction Canal was dug along the valley bottom alongside the road.
Fearnley Whittingstall 1838–1856
In 1838 Sir Edmund Filmer (8th Bt[2]) sold the estate to Edmund Fearnley Whittingstall (né Fearnley), a Watford brewer.[1][3] He started a bank in partnership with William Smith which went into bankruptcy soon after Whittingstall's death, forcing the sale of the estate in 1856.[4]
Jones Loyd 1856–1947
The estate was then held by William Jones Loyd (1821–1885), a partner in the London branch of Jones Loyd & Co,[5] who was High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1861[6] and cousin to Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone.[7] Jones Loyd built the nearby church of St Pauls in 1864.[8][9]
His son, Edward Henry Loyd, was High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1894.[6] During the Second World War the house was leased to the Equity and Law Insurance Company.[10]
School 1947–1996
In 1947 the estate was sold to Hertfordshire County Council who converted the house and grounds into a secondary school, named Langleybury School, which opened in 1949.[10] In the late 1950s a modern school was built to the south of the mansion, which remained in use as part of the school and as teacher accommodation.
Langleybury School closed in 1996 and for a time partly housed Hertfordshire County Council Social Services offices. The empty modern school became a favoured film location site, notably for the Hope and Glory TV series of 1999.
It is also used as a CCB (close combat battle) area for people who play Airsoft (an outdoor combat game) in the buildings which are still safe to enter.
A children’s farm is situated in the old farm attached to the mansion house.
Notable people
Violet Cressy-Marcks (1895–1970), explorer and journalist, buried at Langleybury church.[11]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Leigh Rayment's Baronetage
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. The brewery in question had previously been Smith's, and later became, in succession, Sedgwick's, Benskin's, Ind Coope, Allied Breweries, Carlsberg-Tetley, and now Carlsberg UK
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Jones Loyd & Co was bought by the London and Westminster Bank in 1864, which through the intermediate steps of London County and Westminster Bank (1909), London County Westminster & Parr's Bank (1918), Westminster Bank (1923), National Westminster Bank (1970), is since 2000 part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Herts High Shrievalty
- ↑ Cilycwm history & heritage
- ↑ St Pauls, Langleybury
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Three Rivers Museum
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Williamson, Tom & The Hertfordshire Gardens Trust The parks and Gardens of West Hertfordshire pub. The Hertfordshire Gardens Trust, 2000 ISBN 0-9538417-1-5
- I Remember Living at Langleybury House by Jill Tidmarsh, Abbots Langley Local History Society, 2000.
External links
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