Minley Manor is a Grade II* listed country manor house, located within a Grade II registered garden, built in the

French Gothic style French Gothic architecture is an architectural style which emerged in France in 1140, and was dominant until the mid-16th century. The most notable examples are the great Gothic cathedrals and churches, Gothic cathedrals of France, including Notr ...

Henry Clutton Henry Clutton (19 March 1819 – 27 June 1893)Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Photograph , http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pis&GScid=1366392&GRid=12186732&PIgrid=12186732&PIcrid=1366392&PIpi=3000944& was an English arch ...

in the 1860s with further additions in the 1880s. The Manor is situated 2 miles north of junction 4A of the M3 between

Farnborough Farnborough may refer to: Australia * Farnborough, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Livingstone United Kingdom * Farnborough, Hampshire, a town in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England ** Farnborough (Main) railway station, a railw ...

and

Yateley Yateley () is a town and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. It lies in the north-eastern corner of Hart District Council area. It includes the settlements of Frogmore and Darby Green to the east. It had a population of 21,011 at t ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, England and is situated in of grounds.

History

The current manor house was built in the French style by

between 1858 and 1860 for

Raikes Currie Raikes Currie (15 April 1801 – 16 October 1881) was Member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton from 1837 to 1857. He was a partner of the bank Curries & Co, along with his father, Isaac Currie, in Cornhill, City of London, and had several int ...

, a partner in Glyn Mills' Bank and a member of the Currie family. Through this bank, they were early financiers of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, a colony developed for the

British government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

, and thus had some ties related to slavery and the colony. During the next three years attention turned to the estate, with the creation of formal gardens around the house and a kitchen garden. The remainder was landscaped as pleasure gardens by F W Meyer, working with the horticulturists Veitch & Sons of Exeter. On Raikes' death in 1881, his son Bertram Wodehouse Currie continued the development, employing Messrs Veitch to lay out a Winter Garden and extensions to the pleasure gardens, which included Hawley Lake, in the 1880s. The house was the birthplace of the British

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

Sir

Reginald Hoare Sir Reginald Hervey Hoare KCMG (19 July 1882 – 12 August 1954) was a British diplomat and banker. Early life Hoare was born on 19 July 1882 at Minley Manor in Hampshire. Rex, as he was known, was the fourth son, in a family of four sons and ...

in 1882. Raikes' grandson Laurence Currie built a water tower, created a new complex of walled gardens and further extended the ornamental planting and woodland. The property passed to the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

in 1934, initially for the Senior Wing of the nearby

Staff College, Camberley Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army and the presidency armies of British India (later merged to form the Indian Army). It had its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, founded in 1799, which i ...

. It was used by the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, from 1971, as a brigade headquarters and then, from 1990, as an officers' mess for units at Gibraltar Barracks, which are located on the opposite side of the A327 Minley Road. In 2013, as part of the RSME- PPP project, the Holdfast consortium built a new officers' mess on the Gibraltar Barracks site. The Ministry of Defence part-funded this project from sale of the manor which was sold to an international investor in November 2014. The international investor submitted planning permission to change the use of the manor in to a five star hotel, spa, conference centre and Chinese culture centre. On the 22 October 2018 a large fire engulfed the water tower, part of the Minley Manor estate. The owners of the estate, Strong Property (UK) Ltd, applied for planning permission to restore the tower in December 2019; however the request was rejected in April 2020 on the basis that the original iron water tank would not have been retained.

In popular culture

One of the main features is a 600-metre Wellingtonia tree avenue, which was shown off to good effect in the 1969 movie ''

Mosquito Squadron ''Mosquito Squadron'' is a 1969 British war film made by Oakmont Productions, directed by Boris Sagal and starring David McCallum. The raid echoes Operation Jericho, a combined RAF–Maquis raid which freed French prisoners from Amiens jail in ...

'', where the manor house played the part of a French

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

used as a prisoner of war camp and factory for the

V-1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb (german: Vergeltungswaffe 1 "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany), Reich Aviation Ministry () designation was Fi 103. It was also known to the Allies as the buz ...

. The manor was also used as a location in the 2007 Victorian fantasy movie '' Stardust'', starring

Robert De Niro Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...

and

Michelle Pfeiffer Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress and producer. A prolific performer whose List of Michelle Pfeiffer performances, screen work spans over four decades, she became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars and ...

. The feature film '' Detective Pikachu'', released in 2019, used the training bridge, also in the Manor's grounds, as the setting for the pivotal car crash. The grounds of Minley Manor featured in the Netflix movie, '' Enola Holmes'', released in 2020.

References

{{commons category, Minley Manor

External links

Holdfast Consortium
Country houses in Hampshire Staff College, Camberley