Bagshot Park

Bagshot Park is a royal residence located near Bagshot, a village 11 miles (18 km) south of Windsor and approximately 11 miles (18 km) north west of Guildford. It is on Bagshot Heath, a fifty square-mile tract of formerly open land in Surrey and Berkshire. Bagshot Park occupies 21 hectares (51 acres) within the designated area of Windsor Great Park.[1]

Bagshot Park
Bagshot Park, c. 1880
Location within Surrey
General information
Coordinates	51°22′14″N 0°41′46″W
Current tenants	The Earl and Countess of Wessex
Completed	1879
Owner	The Crown Estate
Listed Building – Grade II
Official name	Bagshot Park Mansion
Designated	4 August 1976
Reference no.	1030005
National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens
Official name	Bagshot Park
Designated	27 February 1998
Reference no.	1001381

The Mansion house was listed, Grade II, as a building of special architectural or historic interest in 1976.[2] Built with red brick and stone dressings in Tudor gothic style, with side and rear extensions in late 19th and early 20th centuries. The landscaped grounds are also Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]

History

The original Bagshot Lodge was built between 1631–33[4] as one of a series of small lodges designed for King Charles I by Inigo Jones. It was remodelled between 1766 and 1772 according to designs of James Paine for George Keppel, the 3rd Earl of Albemarle,[5] and altered in 1798 by Sir John Soane[6] for the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), who lived there until 1816.

Bagshot Park was subsequently used by Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, nephew of King George III. The Duke added pieces of property between the estate and Sunningdale; his widow, Princess Mary, daughter of King George III, continued to live there after his death until she moved out in 1847.[7] The original house was demolished in 1877–78.[8]

A new building with 120 rooms was completed in 1879. The 1881 census records an equerry and 26 servants living in the main house: an under butler, a housekeeper, four valets, two lady's maids, two dressers, a cook, three kitchen maids, three housemaids, three footmen, a page, a porter, a scullery maid, two other junior posts and a soldier. A coachman and seven grooms lived in the stables. Two other domestic staff lived in one of the lodges, three agricultural workers lived in another, and one gardener is recorded as living on the estate.[9] From 1880 this was the principal residence of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, a son of Queen Victoria. The Duke, who was Governor General of Canada from 1911 until 1916, died at Bagshot Park in 1942. The property had been in grace and favour occupation.

Following the Duke's death, Bagshot Park was requisitioned by the Army for the Auxiliary Territorial Service (later to become the WRAC) to use as their Staff College. This closed at the end of the war.

In 1946 King George VI offered the house to the Royal Army Chaplains' Department to be used as a Church House and Chaplains' Depot. The Army Chaplains were in residence from 1947 but relocated to Andover, Hampshire, in April 1996, shortly before the Earl and Countess of Wessex took over the tenancy. The Army Chaplains famously placed a notice by the pond reading "Please do not walk on the water". The original sign was removed when the chaplains left, but a new one, made by J. M. J. Holland Chairmakers and given to the Earl of Wessex, has replaced it.

Although the house was criticised as ugly by the architectural historian Professor Sir Nikolaus Pevsner,[10] it was said to be the most adventurous royal house to be created since the death of Albert, the Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, in 1861. It is also a remarkable monument in the history of Indian taste in Britain: an Indian billiard room wing, which inspired the more famous Durbar Room at Osborne House, was prefabricated in India and installed in the 1880s. This was a result of the Duke of Connaught's Indian tour, when the Duke met John Lockwood Kipling and asked him to design and oversee the installation of a billiard room in Indian taste. The Indian craftsmen who assembled and installed the room at Bagshot were housed in a tent in the grounds. The work took two years and was a wedding gift from Indian princes to the Duke and Duchess of Connaught.[11]

Lease to Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex

Bagshot Park in 2008.

In March 1998, the Mansion House at Bagshot Park, including a block of stables and Sunningdale Lodge, was leased by the Crown Estate to Prince Edward for 50 years. The Mansion House was renovated as a residence for the prince. The renovation was partly funded by the Crown Estate and partly funded by Prince Edward. The renovation was originally estimated to cost £2.18m, with £1.6m from the Crown Estate and the remainder being paid by the prince. The National Audit Office (NAO) report on the transaction states that the final cost of renovations was £2.98m; the Crown Estate paid £1.6m and the estimated excess of £1.38m was paid by Prince Edward. The prince rented it from the Crown Estate initially for £5,000 a year then after renovation rising to £90,000 a year subject to 15-year rent reviews linked to RPI. According to the NAO report, the property leased by the prince does not include commercial farmland or woodland. The lease agreement permits subletting of the stable block.[1]

Prince Edward has since extended the lease to 150 years for £5m.[12]

Royal Tenants

First tenant, 1880

Duke	Portrait	Birth	Marriages	Death
Prince Arthur House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha 1874–1942 Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Earl of Sussex (1874)		1 May 1850 Buckingham Palace son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert	13 March 1879 Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia 3 children	16 January 1942 Bagshot Park, Surrey aged 91

Second tenant, 1998

Earl	Portrait	Birth	Marriages	Death
Prince Edward House of Windsor 1999–present Earl of Wessex (1999), Earl of Forfar (2019), Viscount Severn (1999)		10 March 1964 Buckingham Palace son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip	19 June 1999 Sophie Rhys-Jones 2 children	– now 56 years, 331 days old

Notes

1. "The Crown Estate – Property Leases with the Royal Family". Report. National Audit Office (United Kingdom). 2005. Retrieved 16 April 2015.
2. Historic England, "Bagshot Park Mansion (1030005)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 August 2019
3. Historic England, "Bagshot Park (1001381)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 August 2019
4. History of the King's works IV.
5. Colvin, 1995, "James Paine".
6. Dorothy Stroud, 1984, Sir John Soane, Architect.
7. Flora Fraser, Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III 57
8. Colvin, 1995, "James Paine", "Sir John Soane"
9. Bagshot Park.
10. N. Pevsner, Surrey in series Buildings of England
11. Judith Flanders, A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).
12. Adams, Stephen (6 July 2009). "Royal family members 'offered cut-price deals on properties'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 9 April 2018.

References

• Colvin, Howard. (1995). A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840. 3rd ed. Yale University Press.

External links

• bagshotvillage.org.uk page