Park Place (Berkshire)

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Park Place in Berkshire

Park Place is a country house with a garden in the parish of Remenham on a large estate above the Thames near Henley-on-Thames in the English county of Berkshire . English Heritage has listed it as a Grade II Historic Building.

history

Lord Archibald Hamilton bought the property from Mrs. Elizabeth Baker in 1719 and had a new villa built on it. Friedrich Ludwig von Hannover , the father of King George III. , bought the house from Lord Hamilton in 1738.

Conway's Bridge

In 1752 Henry Seymour Conway bought the property and made major changes. Humphrey Gainsborough , the brother of the painter Thomas Gainsborough , designed Conway's Bridge , which was built on the property in 1763. This is an interesting, rough stone arch bridge near the Thames, over which the traffic between Wargrave and Henley-on-Thames still flows today .

Henry Hawkins Tremayne visited Park Place in 1785 when touring various gardens in southern England. He was delighted with the garden; he was particularly impressed by the underground passages, the menagerie, the temples and the stone arch bridge. From this he drew inspiration for the design of his own garden, which is now called " The Lost Gardens of Heligan ".

In 1797, after Conway's death, James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury , bought the property. In 1816 he had the property (Landhaus & Park) auctioned and Henry Piper Sperling bought it. In 1824 Sperling exchanged it for Norbury Park in Surrey from his cousin Ebenezer Fuller Maitland of Shinfield Park in Berkshire. The new owner of Park Place had "The Obelisk" erected to commemorate Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. This memorial, also known as the Victoria Memorial, was originally the spire of St Bride's Church on Fleet Street in London , designed by Christopher Wren .

Ebenezer Fuller Maitland died in 1858 and Queen Victoria visited the property with the intention of buying it for the Prince of Wales , which she did not. Maitland's widow stayed in the house until her death in 1865, when it fell to their son, William Fuller Maitland . He tried to put the house up for auction in 1866, but it wasn't actually sold until 1867. The buyer was Charles Easton of Whiteknights , a speculator who wanted to split the then 320-acre property.

In 1869 John Noble bought the property. It belonged to his family until 1947. Then “Wilson Noble”, John Noble's son, had it auctioned in various lots. The country house went to Middlesex County Council and in 1965 ownership passed to Hillingdon London Borough Council . The house served as a boarding school for children between 11 and 16 years old with health or mental problems until 1998 and was then sold to private individuals.

A consortium bought Park Place and wanted to convert it into a country club , but failed because of the approval of the Wokingham Borough Council . After being used for outdoor shoots for The Girls of St. Trinian in June 2007 , it was sold for £ 42 million to Mike Spink , a luxury real estate agent, making the deal the most expensive home sale outside of London made.

Spink invested over £ 100m in restoring the garden and main house. In 2011 he sold Park Place to Andrei Borodin for £ 140m, making the transaction the UK's most expensive home sale. The main house, three other large houses, ten leased farms, another eight farms in need of restoration, a boathouse with gables, stables, an agricultural yard, various dilapidated agricultural outbuildings and two golf courses were sold . Spink kept a plot of 120 hectares for further exploitation.

In 2013, Borodin was granted political asylum in the UK. In 2016, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court ordered the seizure of the property, allegedly for the hundreds of millions of pounds that Borodin said the court had stolen from the bank he was running. Borodin amassed billions of pounds as managing director of the Bank of Moscow . He fled Russia in 2011 after being charged with massive fraud but said he was persecuted for political reasons and for supporting dissidents against former President Dmitry Medvedev . Experts believe it is unlikely that Park Place will ultimately be handed over to the Russian judicial system.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Park Place, Remenham . Mysterious Britain. Archived from the original on August 2, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 3, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk
  2. ^ Leslie Stephen (editor): Conway, Henry Seymour in Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 12. Smith, Elder & Co., London 1887. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  3. ^ History of Remenham . Royal Berkshire History. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  4. ↑ Tim Smit: The Lost Gardens of Heligan . Victor Galancz, 1999. ISBN 0-575-06765-9 . Pp. 118-119.
  5. ^ The Obelisk in the grounds of Park Place . British Listed Buildings. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  6. ^ Helen Davies: Britain's most expensive country house . In: The Times . June 17, 2007. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  7. ↑ Eleanor Harding: Russian billionaire buys Britain's priciest home in Berkshire for £ 140m . The Daily Mail. August 15, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  8. ↑ Russian Banker buys £ 140m Henley Pile in Sunday Times . August 5, 2012. p. 13.
  9. ^ Andrew Hough: Park Place: Britain's most expensive home sold for record £ 140m . August 13, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  10. ^ Roland Oliphant: Russian court 'seizes' Britain's most expensive home . The Daily Telegraph. May 12, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2016.

Coordinates: 51 ° 31 '58.1 "  N , 0 ° 52' 52.3"  W.