Coldeast is a former

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

and former

psychiatric hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociat ...

between

Park Gate Park Gate is a locality in the Borough of Fareham in Hampshire, England. It merges into Locks Heath to the south, Segensworth to the east and Sarisbury to the west. Within the area are numerous shops, predominantly fast food outlets and estat ...

and

Sarisbury Sarisbury is a village to the west of Park Gate within the borough of Fareham, Hampshire, in the south of England. Its focal point is Sarisbury Green (the two names are interchangeable) and the parish church of St Paul, formerly part of Titchf ...

in Hampshire, England. The house is used today as a wedding and conference venue and much of the former grounds are being redeveloped for housing and the construction of a new leisure centre.

Location

Coldeast is situated in the

ward of Fareham Borough, between Park Gate itself and

. The site is a little over northeast of the River Hamble.

History

Previously part of the manors of

Titchfield Titchfield is a village in southern Hampshire, by the River Meon. The village has a history stretching back to the 6th century. During the medieval period, the village operated a small port and market. Near to the village are the ruins of Titc ...

and Swanwick, Cold East Farm was located on the site of today's manor house in 1765. In 1837 it was owned by Robert Cawte and occupied by William Cawte, but a few years later was in the hands of the Hornby family. Veterinary Surgeons in Coldeast Way - geograph

Veterinary Surgeons in Coldeast Way - geograph

It was occupied by horse trader Arthur Hornby by the 1840s and the 1851 census shows that three staff lived there with him. The Hornby family were wealthy local landowners, and extended the house and grounds during their tenure, adding stables, dungeon, outhouses, two lodge houses and carriage drives lined by avenues of trees, all of which appear on the

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

map of 1868. As well as Coldeast the family owned Hook House near Warsash, where William Hornby lived until his death in 1869. Arthur Hornby inherited the house and decided to move there, selling Coldeast, which was described as his "favourite abode in the sales notice. The notice described a moderate sized house and listed pleasure grounds, kitchen gardens, vineries, parkland, heathland and sea views among the assets on the estate. Nathaniel and Emma Montefiore bought the estate in 1870 and continued to develop it, adding glasshouses and formalising the grounds, reflected on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1897 and 1909. Their son,

Claude Montefiore Claude Joseph Goldsmid Montefiore, also Goldsmid–Montefiore or just Goldsmid Montefiore (1858–1938) was the intellectual founder of Anglo- Liberal Judaism and the founding president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a schola ...

, spent part of his childhood there in the early 20th century. The estate was sold again in 1924 to

Hampshire County Council Hampshire County Council (HCC) is an English council that governs eleven of the thirteen districts geographically located within the ceremonial county of Hampshire. As one of twenty-four county councils in England, it acts as the upper tier of ...

by a Mr L G Montefiore. The council added a further to the estate and converted it to use as a psychiatric hospital, adding a boundary fence and ditch alongside the main road and building additional patient accommodation on the site. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, part of the site was occupied by an emergency hospital and allotments. The formal gardens were largely unchanged but the more able patients were encouraged to take part in farming some of the land until 1964, when parts of the estate were sold off for housing. The house was granted

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 ...

status but the conversion to a hospital meant many of the original features of the house were removed or replaced, including a large oval staircase which was replaced by concrete steps, and the national listed building status was revoked. However the house, along with the stables, dairy cottage, cart shed, lodge houses, gate piers and associated wing walls were all still locally listed as of 2011. The complex was left empty in 1996 and began to decay. By around 2009, plans had been made for the house to be converted into a hotel but the developer pulled out and a new property developer took on the restoration of the house. The building was rotten and infested by

pigeons Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

, with water pouring through the floors and filling the basement. The Meadows Outpatients Clinic - geograph

The neighbouring Fareham Community Hospital was opened in 2010 and the Meadows psychiatric unit which had been built in the grounds of the house closed in 2012. The South East Hampshire

Clinical commissioning group Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) were NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in each of their local areas in England. On 1 July 2022 they were abolished and replaced by Integ ...

decided that the Coldeast site was no longer required for the NHS in August 2013 and it was likely that the original house would be demolished and replaced by modern housing. However in 2015 the process to restore and convert of the house into a wedding and conference venue was completed, with three main event rooms on the ground floor and 38 suites upstairs. The garden had been completely overgrown but was also being restored, with the original walled garden reported to be "in a lovely state" in March 2015. Meanwhile the remaining former hospital site was still in the process of being sold by the NHS; NHS Property Services sold a section of the site spanning to a housing developer and

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust which provides community health, mental health and learning disability services across Hampshire. It is one of the largest providers of such services in England. History The trus ...

sold a portion in June 2015.

Fareham Borough Council Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufact ...

had taken on some of the property, building Holly Hill Leisure Centre at a cost of £7 million and a sheltered housing complex costing £5 million.

References

{{authority control Borough of Fareham Manor houses in England Buildings and structures in Hampshire Former psychiatric hospitals in England Defunct hospitals in England Hospitals in Hampshire History of Hampshire Hospitals disestablished in 1996 Country houses in Hampshire