Amport House is a

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

near the village of Amport,

Andover, Hampshire Andover ( ) is a town in the English county of Hampshire. The town is on the River Anton, a major tributary of the Test, and is situated alongside the major A303 trunk road at the eastern end of Salisbury Plain, west of the town of Basingsto ...

, England. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The house was built in 1857 by

John Paulet, 14th Marquess of Winchester John Paulet, 14th Marquess of Winchester (3 June 1801 – 4 July 1887), styled Earl of Wiltshire until 1843, was a British peer and soldier. Life Born at Amport House in 1801 as the eldest son of the 13th Marquess of Winchester, he was educated ...

. After being requisitioned during the Second World War, the house had various military uses and was the home of the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre until March 2020, when it was sold by the Ministry of Defence.

History

The current house was built in 1857 in an

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

style near the village of Amport by John Paulet, 14th Marquess of Winchester, replacing two earlier houses which had stood on the site. It has a gatehouse and a

pleached Pleaching or plashing is a technique of interweaving living and dead branches through a hedge creating a fence, hedge or lattices. Trees are planted in lines, and the branches are woven together to strengthen and fill any weak spots until the hedg ...

avenue of

lime tree ''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they ...

s, now believed to be the longest such avenue in the United Kingdom. The last of the Paulet family to reside at Amport was Henry Paulet, 16th Marquess of Winchester. Facing high levels of taxation at the end of the First World War, he sold the estate in lots between November 1918 and July 1919. Not long afterwards, the house and grounds were bought by Colonel Sofer Whitburn DSO, who in 1923 engaged

Sir Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memoria ...

and Gertrude Jekyll to redesign the gardens. At the start of the Second World War, the house was requisitioned to be used as the headquarters of Royal Air Force Maintenance Command; as well as ceding them use of the house, Sofer Whitburn is reported to have donated his entire

wine cellar A wine cellar is a storage room for wine in bottles or barrels, or more rarely in carboys, amphorae, or plastic containers. In an ''active'' wine cellar, important factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system. ...

to the Officers' Mess as a patriotic gesture. In 1943, with the RAF still in possession, he sold the house; in 1957, the RAF itself bought the property. Later that year, the Royal Air Force Chaplains' School moved from Dowdeswell Court in

Dowdeswell Dowdeswell is a civil parish in the ward of Chedworth, Cotswold, in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. It is separated into Upper and Lower Dowdeswell, the former being south of the latter. The population of the civil parish at t ...

to Amport House. The School included a Royal Navy chaplain staff member, and in 1996, with the closure of the

depot Depot ( or ) may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Island, Kemp Land, Antarctica * Depot Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica * Depot Island Formation, Greenland Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in ...

of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department at

Bagshot Park Bagshot Park is a royal residence located near Bagshot, a village south of Windsor. It is on Bagshot Heath, a tract of formerly open land in Surrey and Berkshire. Bagshot Park occupies within the designated area of Windsor Great Park. The ...

, it became the tri-service Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre. In 1984, Amport House became a Grade II

. In September 2016, the Ministry of Defence announced that Amport House would be put up for sale as part of a programme of defence estate rationalisation. ''A Better Defence Estate'', published in November 2016, indicated that the Armed Forces Chaplaincy would close by 2020, which it subsequently did, to be relocated to

Shrivenham Shrivenham is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Faringdon. The village is close to the county boundary with Wiltshire and about east-northeast of Swindon. The 2011 Census recorde ...

, near Swindon. The licence for the publication of

banns of marriage The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as the "banns" or "bans" (from a Middle English word meaning "proclamation", rooted in Frankish and thence in Old French), are the public announcement in a Christian parish church, or in the town cou ...

and the solemnisation of such marriages which had been granted to the chapel in January 2000 in accordance with the

Marriage Act 1949 The Marriage Act 1949 (12, 13 & 14 Geo 6 c 76) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom regulating marriages in England and Wales. The Act had prohibited solemnizing marriages during evenings and at night. Since the Marriage Act 1836 i ...

was cancelled in July 2020. A converted stable block at the house was for some years the home of the Royal Army Chaplains' Museum, which also moved to Shrivenham. In 2021, plans were announced to convert Amport House into an hotel.

References

External links

Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom official website
Who we are: Amport House
RAF Chaplains official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Amport House Military chaplains Royal Air Force stations in Hampshire Installations of the British Army Royal Navy bases in Hampshire Tudor Revival architecture in England Andover, Hampshire Country houses in Hampshire Royal Army Chaplains' Department Elizabethan architecture Houses completed in 1857 Gardens in Hampshire Gardens by Gertrude Jekyll Works of Edwin Lutyens in England 1857 establishments in England Grade II listed houses in Hampshire

History

See also

References

External links