Brantridge Park, Balcombe, West Sussex, England is a 19th-century country house, formerly one of the lesser royal residences. It is a Grade II listed building. [1]
The house and grounds replaced Brantridge farmhouse and farm. Sir Robert Loder, 1st Baronet acquired the estate in 1849, and by 1874, Brantridge Park mansion had been built. [2]
Standing in Brantridge Forest, it was the seat of Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone (and brother of Queen Mary), and his wife, Princess Alice of Albany, the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria. They leased the house from Lord Cowdray from 1922 onwards.
Princess Beatrice, youngest and last surviving child of Queen Victoria and aunt of Princess Alice, also lived in Brantridge Park until her death in her sleep here on 26 October 1944, aged 87.
Sir Denys Lowson, at one time Lord Mayor of London, lived there for some years after the Athlones. The house was then used as a home for disabled children.
The house was divided into apartments,[ when? ] and operated as a time-share resort until January 2008.
In December 2016, Brantridge Park was bought by the architect Anders Dahl and his wife, Fiona Bigwood. [3]
As of January 2022, Brantridge Park is a hotel. [4]
Marlborough House, a Grade I listed mansion on The Mall in St James's, City of Westminster, London, is the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Nations and the seat of the Commonwealth Secretariat. It is adjacent to St James's Palace.
Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone was a member of the British royal family. She was one of the longest-lived British royals. Princess Alice was the chatelaine of Rideau Hall in Ottawa from 1940 until 1946, while her husband Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, served as Governor General of Canada.
Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, was a member of the extended British royal family, as a great-grandson of King George III, a brother of Queen Mary, uncle to the Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and the husband of Princess Alice of Albany. He was a British Army commander, who served as Governor-General of the Union of South Africa and Governor General of Canada.
Alastair Arthur Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was a member of the British Royal Family. He was the only child of Prince Arthur of Connaught and Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife. He was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria through his father and a great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria through his mother. He was also a descendant of Victoria's paternal uncle and predecessor, William IV, through an illegitimate line.
Lady May Helen Emma Abel Smith was a member of the British royal family. On her mother's side she was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and on her father's side she was a great-great-granddaughter of King George III and the niece of Queen Mary. She led a private life in Britain. From 1958 until 1966, she lived in Brisbane, while her husband, Sir Henry Abel Smith, served as the governor of Queensland.
Colonel Sir Henry Abel Smith, was a British Army officer who served as Governor of Queensland, Australia. He married Lady May Cambridge, a niece of Queen Mary, consort of King George V.
Kensington Palace is a royal residence set in Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has been a residence of the British royal family since the 17th century, and is currently the official London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank and their two sons. Kensington Palace is sometimes used as a metonym for the offices of royals who officially reside there.
Penshurst Place is a historic building near Penshurst, Kent, 32 miles (51 km) south east of London, England. It is the ancestral home of the Sidney family, and was the birthplace of the great Elizabethan poets and courtiers, siblings Mary Sidney and Philip Sidney. The original medieval house is one of the most complete surviving examples of 14th-century domestic architecture in England. Part of the house and its gardens are open for public viewing. Many TV shows and movies have been filmed at Penshurst.
Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.
Gatcombe Park is a country house between the villages of Minchinhampton and Avening in Gloucestershire, England. Originally constructed in the 1770s, it was rebuilt from 1820 by George Basevi for the economist David Ricardo. Since 1976 it has been the country home of Anne, Princess Royal. Gatcombe is a Grade II* listed building. Parts of the grounds open for events, including horse trials and craft fairs.
Eaton Square is a rectangular, residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is the largest square in London. It is one of the three squares built by the landowning Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the 19th century that are named after places in Cheshire — in this case Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house. It is larger but less grand than the central feature of the district, Belgrave Square, and both larger and grander than Chester Square. The first block was laid out by Thomas Cubitt from 1827. In 2016 it was named as the "Most Expensive Place to Buy Property in Britain", with a full terraced house costing on average £17 million — many of such town houses have been converted, within the same, protected structures, into upmarket apartments.
Balcombe is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. It lies 31 miles (50 km) south of London, 16 miles (26 km) north of Brighton, and 32 miles (51 km) east-northeast of the county town of Chichester. Nearby towns include Crawley to the northwest and Haywards Heath to the south-southeast.
Brocket Hall is a neo-classical country house set in a large park at the western side of the urban area of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, England. The estate is equipped with two golf courses and seven smaller listed buildings, apart from the main house. The freehold on the estate is held by the 3rd Baron Brocket. The house is Grade I-listed.
White Lodge is a Grade I listed Georgian house situated in Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Formerly a royal residence, it now houses the Royal Ballet Lower School, instructing students aged 11–16.
Pishiobury, sometimes spelled Pishobury, was a manor and estate in medieval Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Its denomination as "Pishiobury" only emerged in the mid to late 19th century.
The Royal Burial Ground is a cemetery used by the British royal family. Consecrated on 23 October 1928 by the Bishop of Oxford, it is adjacent to the Royal Mausoleum, which was built in 1862 to house the tomb of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The burial ground lies on the Frogmore estate within the Home Park at Windsor, in the English county of Berkshire.
Shulbrede Priory is a former medieval monastic house in West Sussex, England; it became the home of the Ponsonby family, including the first Lord Ponsonby. It is a Grade I listed building.
Ashtead Park is a 24.2-hectare (60-acre) Local Nature Reserve in Ashtead in Surrey. It is owned by Mole Valley District Council. It contains several important listed buildings. The Park itself has remains of a Roman building, four lakes/ponds and the school's playing fields and is Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Fernhill is a hamlet close to Gatwick Airport in West Sussex, England. Its fields and farmhouses formerly straddled the county boundary between Surrey and West Sussex, but since 1990 the whole area has been part of the county of West Sussex and the borough of Crawley. Fernhill is bounded on three sides by motorways and the airport. A fatal aeroplane crash occurred here in 1969.
A statue of Queen Victoria stands near Kensington Palace. It was sculpted by Victoria's fourth daughter Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll and erected in 1893. The statue was made from white marble on a Portland stone base. It depicts Victoria aged 18, seated in her coronation robes, resembling the painting of Victoria at her coronation by Sir George Hayter. The statue received a Grade II listing in 1969.
51°3′26.32″N0°9′52.64″W / 51.0573111°N 0.1646222°W