Moor Park (house)

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Moor Park is a Grade I listed Palladian mansion set within several hundred acres of parkland in Hertfordshire, England. It is called Moor Park Mansion because it is in the old park of the Manor of More. The original house was built in 1678–9 for James, Duke of Monmouth, and inherited by his wife, Anne Scott, 1st Duchess of Buccleuch after he was beheaded. Before her death in 1732, Benjamin Hoskins Styles, who had made a fortune in The South Sea Company before the notorious Bubble burst, purchased it. The current appearance of the mansion can be traced to him. It was highly remodelled by Styles in the 1720's by famed Italian architect Giacomo Leoni. Styles refaced the house with Portland stone, added its grand portico Tuscan colonnades (since removed), and added a painted staircase by Sir James Thornhill. In 1752 it was bought by Admiral Lord Anson who commissioned Capability Brown to remake the formal gardens in sweeping "landscape style" with a small lake. Further owners succeeded at regular intervals until the enlarged estate was sold to the Grosvenor family in 1828. The Earl Grosvenor, son of the duke of Westminster, built the gateway at Batchworth Heath and planted the pleasure grounds with trees and ornamental shrubs. It is said that the commercial strawberry, a hybrid of the European strawberry and a Chilean species, was first cultivated in the kitchen gardens of Moor Park, as had been the "Moorpark" fuzzless apricot in an earlier day.

During World War II the mansion was requisitioned, becoming the Headquarters of the 1st Airborne Corps who planned Operation Market Garden. Moor Park Golf Club now has its clubhouse in the building. There are two courses operated from there; the High Course and the West Course of which High Course is the more demanding. It has hosted a number of professional tournaments and English Golf Union events, including the Carris Trophy in 2001.

Moor Park (house)

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