Cherkley Court, at the extreme southeast of

Leatherhead Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leath ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, is a late Victorian neo-classical mansion and estate of , once the home of Canadian-born press baron

Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...

. The main house is listed Grade II on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

History

The house was built in 1866–70 for

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

exporter of metal goods Abraham Dixon (1815–1907) and rebuilt for him in 1893 after a fire, being lived in by his wife until her death in 1909. Cherkley Court was acquired in 1910 by Lord Beaverbrook, politician and owner of the

Express Newspapers Northern & Shell (holding company name Northern and Shell Network Ltd) is a British publishing group, founded in December 1974 and owned since then by Richard Desmond. Formerly a publisher of pornographic magazines including '' Penthouse'' and ' ...

group, and he lived there for the next fifty years. During Beaverbrook's time, the house attracted many famous weekend guests including

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

Bonar Law Andrew Bonar Law ( ; 16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1922 to May 1923. Law was born in the British colony of New Brunswick (now a ...

Rebecca West Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books ...

, H.G. Wells,

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...

and

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

.Cherkley Court closes to public
''Epsom Guardian'', 10 December 2009, Retrieved 10 December 2009 Beaverbrook passed the house on to his son Max some years before his death in 1964. After the death of Beaverbrook's second wife in 1994, the house became the property of the

Beaverbrook Foundation William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...

, a charitable foundation set up by Lord Beaverbrook. Lord Beaverbrooks's daughter,

Janet Gladys Aitken Janet Gladys Aitken, later Campbell, Montagu, and Kidd, (9 July 1908 – 18 November 1988) was a Canadian-British aristocrat and socialite. The daughter of Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, she grew up at Cherkley Court in Surrey. She was the ...

, served as a trustee of the foundation.

Features

Garden and grounds

The formal garden of the house is dwarfed by its hilltop woods, which reach the borders of Mickleham and

Headley Headley may refer to: Places * Headley, Basingstoke and Deane in the civil parish of Ashford Hill with Headley * Headley, East Hampshire ** Headley Grange, Hampshire * Headley, Surrey Other uses * Headley (surname) * Baron Headley, a title in t ...

. Paths into the widest part of

North Downs The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. Much of the North Downs comprises two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs): the Surrey Hills and ...

to the east adjoin, such as the

North Downs Way The North Downs Way National Trail is a long-distance path in southern England, opened in 1978. It runs from Farnham to Dover, past Guildford, Dorking, Merstham, Otford and Rochester, along the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty ...

. The garden has three, separately listed, original features: *Garden pool, or pond, long and in two terraced parts. *A lower terrace with a

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

wall

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

*Wide terrace steps with

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

(half-open façade gallery)

Building

The building is of eclectic style, with classical features, particularly

Tuscan column The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but with u ...

s. It is made of mostly

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

ed brick, with some uniformly cut stone blocks (

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

), and slate roofs. It has semi-hexagonal protruding side wings, an irregular plan with a large service block attached at the north-east corner and a flat-roofed pavilion at the south-east corner.

Present use

By 2002 Cherkley Court had fallen into disrepair but over seven years the Beaverbrook Foundation restored the property, with the intention of opening it to the public in the same way as the great houses owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

. On 1 April 2007 it opened its of formal gardens and walks to paying visitors. As well as grand terraces, garden pavilions, a stone grotto and an Italianate garden there are wild flower meadows, a walnut grove and woodland walks. However, in December 2009 it was announced that the house would no longer be open to the public, from 2010, the Foundation having decided that it could not be profitable. In September 2010 the house and estate were put on the market at £20 million and purchased by a company called Longshot Cherkley Court, whose plans to turn the main house into a hotel and the grounds into a golf course were opposed by the

Campaign to Protect Rural England CPRE, The Countryside Charity, formerly known by names such as the ''Council for the Preservation of Rural England'' and the ''Council for the Protection of Rural England'', is a charity in England with over 40,000 members and supporters. Forme ...

(CPRE) from before the purchase was completed. In April 2012, the local planning committee considered the proposals in detail and concluded that the opportunity to safeguard the historic building and protect the integrity of the estate, together with the employment prospects that the hotel, spa, golf course and woodland management would provide, outweighed such opposition, and instructed its planning officers to negotiate conditions with the new owners. In September 2012, planning permission was granted to Longshot Cherkley Court to create a hotel including a health club and spa, plus an 18-hole golf course. This decision met with strong opposition and in August 2013 campaigners, including the CPRE, the Surrey

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

and the Leatherhead Residents' Association, won a High Court appeal to overturn that decision, on the basis that the project would have an adverse effect on a landscape and area of outstanding natural beauty, and that Surrey did not need another golf course, having 141 already. The CPRE said it expected the developer to repair damage caused by work already started. However, in May 2014, the Court of Appeal reversed the High Court decision, reinstating planning permission to Longshot. In October 2014, a request for a second judicial review, by The Cherkley Campaign, now leading opposition to the development, was rejected by a High Court judge. The group vowed to pursue further legal action to prevent the development of the golf course going ahead. Campaigners' Cherkley Court appeal fails for second time
, ''Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser'', 3 October 2014 Cherkley Court reopened as the Beaverbrook Country House Hotel in 2018.

Location

Cherkley Court is off the

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(where it forms the Leatherhead bypass) and its drive begins near the Beaverbrook roundabout (: Landranger Sheet 187, or Explorer 146).

References

External links

Cherkley Court & Gardens

The Beaverbrook Foundation

The Surrey Advertiser, local newspaper that has covered the renovation story
{{Mole Valley Country houses in Surrey Grade II listed houses in Surrey Hotel spas Houses completed in the 19th century Mole Valley