The Explore
Once in a while, an explore pops up that is brand new and hasn't been discovered. Who knows how long these places have been waiting for us but this one is a beauty! Currently in use as a film set, Longcross Manor is on hire to the BBC and was used to film series 4 of Call The Midwife.
The interior of the manor is truly stunning with the entry room and hallway a masterpiece of art. It was also interesting going beind the scenes and seeing how the film sets and props were constructed.
History shamelessly stolen from Trev Bish' report
History: Country house, currently an ,Officers' Mess. 1853 by W W Pocock, architect, for himself; much
enlarged and rebuilt c1905-12 byA E Taylor, ARIBA, TW Heath & Son, Building & Decorator and Robertsons Ltd, Buildings, for j A Mullens. 1928, drawing room remodelled and designed by Basil lonides for Sir William Berry. History: the original house was a Gothic villa, built on a 100 acre estate, and much influenced the plan of the remodelling. Sir John Mullens was a partner in the London stockbroking firm of N Marshall & Co, Lombard Street and remodelled the house as his upper middle class family home set in a country estate. c1912 he brought a team of Japanese landscape gardeners to Barrow Hills to make a then famous Japanese Garden in the grounds; part of this survives in the form of highly realistic concrete "stone" rocks on a hillside with a pumped stream, pools and waterfall over a cliff to a pond and pergola. Sir William Berry (later knighted as Lord Cambrose of Long Cross), newspaper proprietor and one time Editor in Chief of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times, bought the property in 1920. In 1937 ownership passed to the British Greyhound Association who sold it in 1950 to St George's College, Weybridge. Realising that the Ministry of Supply was acquiring much of the surround land, the college sold Barrow Hills to the Ministry in 1952; the following year it became an Officers' Mess and subsequently a Test Track was built in the grounds, destroying much of the Japanese Garden.
Publication: Country Life, 16 Feb 1929, pp235-237; Country Life, 17 Oct 1936; Barrow Hills Mess, An Outline History by Col. H W B Mackintosh, published privately 1984; The Rebuilding of Barrow Hills 1906-1912, an Open University dissertation by Lt. Col. D W Ronald, 1981.
Thanks for looking!
Once in a while, an explore pops up that is brand new and hasn't been discovered. Who knows how long these places have been waiting for us but this one is a beauty! Currently in use as a film set, Longcross Manor is on hire to the BBC and was used to film series 4 of Call The Midwife.
The interior of the manor is truly stunning with the entry room and hallway a masterpiece of art. It was also interesting going beind the scenes and seeing how the film sets and props were constructed.
History shamelessly stolen from Trev Bish' report
History: Country house, currently an ,Officers' Mess. 1853 by W W Pocock, architect, for himself; much
enlarged and rebuilt c1905-12 byA E Taylor, ARIBA, TW Heath & Son, Building & Decorator and Robertsons Ltd, Buildings, for j A Mullens. 1928, drawing room remodelled and designed by Basil lonides for Sir William Berry. History: the original house was a Gothic villa, built on a 100 acre estate, and much influenced the plan of the remodelling. Sir John Mullens was a partner in the London stockbroking firm of N Marshall & Co, Lombard Street and remodelled the house as his upper middle class family home set in a country estate. c1912 he brought a team of Japanese landscape gardeners to Barrow Hills to make a then famous Japanese Garden in the grounds; part of this survives in the form of highly realistic concrete "stone" rocks on a hillside with a pumped stream, pools and waterfall over a cliff to a pond and pergola. Sir William Berry (later knighted as Lord Cambrose of Long Cross), newspaper proprietor and one time Editor in Chief of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times, bought the property in 1920. In 1937 ownership passed to the British Greyhound Association who sold it in 1950 to St George's College, Weybridge. Realising that the Ministry of Supply was acquiring much of the surround land, the college sold Barrow Hills to the Ministry in 1952; the following year it became an Officers' Mess and subsequently a Test Track was built in the grounds, destroying much of the Japanese Garden.
Publication: Country Life, 16 Feb 1929, pp235-237; Country Life, 17 Oct 1936; Barrow Hills Mess, An Outline History by Col. H W B Mackintosh, published privately 1984; The Rebuilding of Barrow Hills 1906-1912, an Open University dissertation by Lt. Col. D W Ronald, 1981.
Thanks for looking!
