Monkenhurst is a house in the Victorian Gothic style at 15 The Crescent on the north edge of New Barnet in London, England. It overlooks

Monken Hadley Common Monken Hadley Common lies within the Monken Hadley Conservation Area, and is listed as a “ Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade I,” by the London Borough of Barnet. It is registered common land, and it is owned by the Tr ...

. The house was built in 1880 to a design by

Peter Dollar Peter Dollar ARIBA (1847 - 28 October 1943) was an English architect and surveyor noted for his cinema designs. Early life Peter Dollar was born in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in 1847. Family Dollar married Emily Ada (died 1937) and they had ...

and was once the home of the comedian

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British Colonial India, where h ...

History

Monkenhurst was built in 1880 to a Victorian Gothic design by

Monken Hadley: Introduction.
British History Online. Retrieved 27 May 2017. and enlarged in 1915. It is of red brick with three storeys and a pyramid-capped tower.

Stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows, acquired from Northumberland House (demolished 1874), show the crests of participants in the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

Taylor, Pamela, & Joanna Corden (1994) ''Barnet, Edgware, Hadley and Totteridge: A Pictorial History''. Chichester: Phillimore. Photograph No. 86. in reference to the Battle of Barnet, a key battle in the conflict that took place nearby."Barnet: My part in its rise and downfall", Anne Spackman, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 4 October 2002, p. 8. In the 1920s the house was the home of the mining engineer and metallurgist

Savannah Johnson Speak Savannah Johnson Speak (4 September 1868 – 29 December 1929) was an English mining engineer and metallurgist. He received a technical education at the Yorkshire College and the Royal School of Mines after which he worked in mining around the wor ...

(1868–1929) and in the 1950s it was the residence of the radiologist Steven Carstairs (1919–1998). In 1973, the house along with other property totalling about two acres, was acquired by Highshore Properties, who, it was reported in ''

Estates Gazette ''EG (formerly Estates Gazette)'' is an established provider of data, news and analytics for the UK commercial property market. It was first published in 1858 and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008. In March 2008, ''Estates Gazette'' wa ...

'', intended to sell Monkenhurst and build houses and bungalows on the rest of the site. In 1974 Monkenhurst was acquired by the comedian

who spent £10,000 restoring it. He also paid to have the pound (an historic livestock enclosure) on Monken Hadley Common repaired. Visitors to the house during Milligan's ownership included

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...

, and fellow Goon Show cast-member Peter Sellers, who arrived naked as a practical joke, and was sent away again still naked. The house was later purchased by the property developer Stephen Friel who spent £250,000 refurbishing it after acquiring it in a poor condition. It was offered for sale in 2002 for £1.75 millionSpike's home for sale.
''Chortle'', 9 October 2002. Retrieved 27 May 2017. Monkenhurst is

locally listed 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 ...

by the London Borough of Barnet.''Monken Hadley Conservation Area Character Appraisal Statement''
London Borough of Barnet, Barnet, 2007, p. 38.

Gallery

File:Monkenhurst 21 July 2015 01.JPG, Window detail File:Monkenhurst 21 July 2015 06.JPG, North side, view from The Crescent File:Monkenhurst 25 July 2015.JPG, View from the west

References

External links

{{Coord, 51, 39, 28.07, N, 0, 11, 6.38, W, scale:1563_region:GB, display=title Houses in the London Borough of Barnet Houses completed in 1880 New Barnet Gothic Revival architecture in London Chipping Barnet Monken Hadley