Broome Hall | |
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Etymology | Broom is a generic and specific English term for the genisteae genus of plants and certain species; from this the tool is derived. |
General information | |
Status | Converted to flats |
Type | Country house and estate |
Classification | Grade II listed |
Location | Near Coldharbour, Surrey, England |
Coordinates | 51°10′14″N0°21′21″W / 51.1705°N 0.3557°W |
Completed | c. 1830 |
Owner | Andrew Spottiswoode MP Frederick Pennington MP Oliver Reed, actor |
Broome Hall is a Grade II-listed country house with grounds including cottages and outhouses on the wooded, upper southern slopes of the Greensand Ridge near Coldharbour in Surrey, England.
It was built around 1830 for the politician and printer Andrew Spottiswoode, and had a succession of similarly wealthy family owners before the main house was converted into eleven flats, each separately owned, in the late 20th century. It was owned, for a number of years in the 1970s, by actor Oliver Reed.
Broom(e) refers to the genus (and specifically several species) of often flowering plants Genisteae (along with gorse, lupins and laburnum). Along with evergreens, broom dominates the sandy soil in the region.
The house was built about 1830 for the printer-politician and investor Andrew Spottiswoode, and extended in the late 19th century for Sir Alexander Brown, 1st Baronet. [2] It was also home from 1865 to the international merchant-politician Frederick Pennington (died 1914) and his suffragette wife, Margaret. [3] [4]
In the Second World War, it served as headquarters of Canadian forces in Britain. Its gravel drive was reinforced with concrete to withstand the weight of tanks. [5]
In 1954, the White Fathers, Christian missionaries in Africa and an order of monks, bought the property and used it as their British novitiate, for training new monks. [5]
The actor Oliver Reed bought the 56-bedroom property in 1971 [6] [7] [8] and became the so-called "Master of Broome Hall" for eight years. [9] [5] Reed only bought the house because he was looking for a field for a horse he had bought from Johnny Kidd, the father of future supermodel Jodie Kidd, who ran a stud farm in Ewhurst. [6] He then spent a fortune renovating it. [9] The naked wrestling scene with Reed and Alan Bates in Ken Russell's 1969 film Women in Love is said to have been filmed there. [5] Reed was banned from his local pub there for descending a chimney naked and shouting out: "Ho! Ho! Ho! I'm Santa Claus." [5] According to an estate agent's negotiator, Reed buried the jewellery collection of a former girlfriend in the grounds where it still lies. [5]
The house was then bought by a property developer who converted it into flats. [5] It was assessed and recognised as a Grade II-listed building in 1987. [2]
Dorking is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about 21 mi (34 km) south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Brook and along the northern face of an outcrop of Lower Greensand. The town is surrounded on three sides by the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is close to Box Hill and Leith Hill.
Waverley Abbey was the first Cistercian abbey in England, founded in 1128 by William Giffard, the Bishop of Winchester.
Westcott is a village in central Surrey, England, about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) west of the centre of Dorking. It is in the Mole Valley district and the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Pipp Brook, a tributary of the River Mole, runs to the north of the centre and the settlement is between Ranmore Common on the North Downs and Leith Hill on the Greensand Ridge.
Abinger is a large, well-wooded and mostly rural civil parish that lies between the settlements of Dorking, Shere and Ewhurst in the district of Mole Valley, Surrey, England.
Betchworth is a village and civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England. The village centre is on the north bank of the River Mole and south of the A25 road, almost 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Dorking and 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Reigate. London is 19.5 miles (31.4 km) north of the village.
Holmbury St Mary is a village in Surrey, England centered on shallow upper slopes of the Greensand Ridge. Its developed area is a nucleated village, 4.5 miles (7 km) southwest of Dorking and 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Guildford. Most of the village is in the borough of Guildford, within Shere civil parish. Much of the east side of the village street is in the district of Mole Valley, within Abinger civil parish.
Headley is a village and civil parish in the North Downs in Surrey, England. The nearest settlements are, to the west, Mickleham and Leatherhead; to the north, Ashtead and Langley Vale; to the east, Walton-on-the-Hill; and to the south, Box Hill. It is just outside the M25 motorway encircling London.
Capel is a village and civil parish in southern Surrey, England. It is equidistant between Dorking and Horsham – about 5 miles (8.0 km) away. Around Capel, to the west, skirts the A24 road. Capel is approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north of the West Sussex border, 26 miles (42 km) south of London and 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Guildford and is in the Mole Valley district. The village is in the north of a landscape called the Weald, meaning forest, which forms a significant minority of the land today, particularly towards the Greensand Ridge.
Betchworth Castle is a mostly crumbled ruin of a fortified medieval stone house with some tall, two-storey corners strengthened in the 18th century, in the north of the semi-rural parish of Brockham. It is built on a sandstone spur overlooking the western bank of the River Mole in Surrey in England.
Norbury Park is an area of mixed wooded and agricultural land surrounding a privately owned its Georgian manor house near Leatherhead and Dorking, Surrey. On the west bank of the River Mole, it is close to the village of Mickleham.
Gatton Park is a country estate set in parkland landscaped by Capability Brown and gardens by Henry Ernest Milner and Edward White at Gatton, near Reigate in Surrey, England.
Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists.
Coldharbour is a village in the Mole Valley district, in the English county of Surrey. It is on a minor road from Dorking to Leith Hill Place. It is in the Surrey Hills AONB and is the highest village in the south-east of England.
Edward Lapidge (1779–1860) was an English architect, who held the post of county surveyor of Surrey and designed Kingston Bridge.
Wotton House is a hotel, wedding venue, conference centre and former country house in Wotton near Dorking, Surrey, England. Originally the centre of the Wotton Estate and the seat of the Evelyn family, it was the birthplace in 1620 of diarist and landscape gardener John Evelyn, who built the first Italian garden in England there.
Denbies is a large estate to the northwest of Dorking in Surrey, England. A farmhouse and surrounding land originally owned by John Denby was purchased in 1734 by Jonathan Tyers, the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens in London, and converted into a weekend retreat. The house he built appears to have been of little architectural significance, but the Gothic garden he developed in the grounds on the theme of death achieved some notoriety, despite being short-lived. The estate was bought by Lord King of Ockham following Tyers's death in 1767, and the macabre artefacts he had installed, including two stone coffins topped by human skulls, were removed.
Godalming Friends Meeting House is a Friends meeting house in the ancient town of Godalming in the English county of Surrey. One of many Nonconformist places of worship in the town, it dates from 1748 but houses a congregation whose roots go back nearly a century earlier. Decline set in during the 19th century and the meeting house passed out of Quaker use for nearly 60 years, but in 1926 the cause was reactivated and since then an unbroken history of Quaker worship has been maintained. Many improvements were carried out in the 20th century to the simple brick-built meeting house, which is Grade II-listed in view of its architectural and historical importance.
The building formerly known as Godalming Congregational Church was the Congregational chapel serving the ancient town of Godalming, in the English county of Surrey, between 1868 and 1977. It superseded an earlier chapel, which became Godalming's Salvation Army hall, and served a congregation which could trace its origins to the early 18th century. The "imposing suite of buildings", on a major corner site next to the Town Bridge over the River Wey, included a schoolroom and a manse, and the chapel had a landmark spire until just before its closure in 1977. At that time the congregation transferred to the nearby Methodist chapel, which became a joint Methodist and United Reformed church with the name Godalming United Church. The former chapel then became an auction gallery before being converted into a restaurant; then in 2018 the premises were let to the Cotswold Company to be converted into a furniture and home accessories showroom. In 1991 the former chapel was listed at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
Andrew Spottiswoode was a Scottish printer, publisher and politician, MP for Saltash from 1826 to 1830, and Colchester from 1830 to 1831.
Media related to Broome Hall at Wikimedia Commons