The mansion was built by Christopher Cass for Robert Chester in 1719 and extended by Thomas Blackmore in 1770, altered in 1899 and further remodelled by H Gibbs (Lord Hunsden) in 1908 . It is Grade 11 listed. The Official Secrets Act kept the truth about Briggens hidden for decades, but now declassified documents and first-hand testimony mean the story can finally be told. More than 275,000 forgeries, including passports, ration cards and cash, were created by the team at Briggens, The forgers were first assembled in 1941 as part of Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), a “ministry of ungentlemanly warfare” Churchill had created to “set Europe ablaze” At first the team comprised just three Polish resistance fighters — only one of whom spoke English — but they were soon joined by Morton Bisset, a Scottish printer who rallied his fellow tradesmen .Before long, Briggens boasted a staff of 50 including printers, draughtsmen, technicians, a Scotland Yard handwriting expert and a team of women from the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) volunteers. Often the forgers raced against the clock, with their work based on real documents that had to be smuggled back into Nazi-occupied Europe before their absence was noted. Briggens also doubled as a training base for the Polish resistance, receiving the cream of the crop from a preliminary training facility in Inverlochy, Scotland, and preparing them to lead guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines. In 1979 the house was converted into an hotel and conference centre with a separate golf club occupying the parkland .The hotel closed its doors In 2006. In 2010 it reopened as a wedding venue but this did not have planning permission and was immediately closed down . There was a live in caretaker here and we managed to get to the top floor before he was hot on our tail lol . Great explore and some very interesting history surrounding the mansion .
