Grade II 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 ...
country house and estate near the village of
Chalfont St Peter
Chalfont St Peter is a large village and civil parish in southeastern Buckinghamshire, England. It is in a group of villages called The Chalfonts which also includes Chalfont St Giles and Little Chalfont. The villages lie between High Wycombe a ...
in
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
.
History
Henry Gott
Sir Henry Thomas Gott (c. 1710 – 14 November 1809), born Henry Thomas Greening was the son of Thomas Greening (died February 1757), gardener to King George II. Thomas (died September 1757) had held royal contracts from the 1720s onward. Henry T ...
bought Newland Park in c. 1770 where he entertained King
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
, and, in 1785, erected an obelisk called Gott's Monument to commemorate the death of a stag killed during a hunt with the king. The estate was purchased by Thomas Allen in 1809 after Gott's death, and was inherited by his son Thomas Newland Allen on his death in 1829. Mrs Edmund Stevens, Allen's daughter, inherited Newland Park on her father's death in 1898, and sold the estate to
Henry Andrade Harben
Henry Andrade Harben FSA (12 August 1849 - 18 August 1910) was a barrister, insurance company director, politician, and historian of London. His highly regarded book, ''A Dictionary of London'', was published posthumously in 1917.
Early life and ...
in 1903.
The gardens were designed by
Thomas Hayton Mawson
Thomas Hayton Mawson (5 May 1861 – 14 November 1933), known as T. H. Mawson, was a British garden designer, landscape architect, and town planner.
Personal life
Mawson was born in Nether Wyresdale, Lancashire, and left school at age 12. H ...
in 1903. After Henry Andrade Harben's death in 1910, the estate was inherited by his son
Henry Devenish Harben
Henry Devenish Harben (1874 – 18 May 1967) was a British barrister and Liberal Party politician who later joined the Labour Party. He was a notable supporter of women's suffrage.
Early life
He was the son of Henry Andrade Harben and the grands ...
, under whom Newland Park became a refuge for
suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
s from 1910 to 1921; he and his wife
Agnes Harben
Agnes Helen Harben (née Bostock; 15 September 1879 – 29 October 1961) was a British Women's suffrage, suffragist leader who also supported the militant suffragette hunger strikers, and was a founder of the United Suffragists.
Family and lif ...
(who later founded the
United Suffragists
The United Suffragists was a women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom.
History
The group was founded on 6 February 1914, by former members and supporters of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In contrast to the WSPU, it admit ...
) was visited by
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
,
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
Beatrice Webb
Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, (née Potter; 22 January 1858 – 30 April 1943) was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the term ''collective bargaining''. She ...
North British and Mercantile Insurance
The North British and Mercantile Insurance Company was a British-based company founded in 1809 in Edinburgh and absorbed as a subsidiary of Commercial Union in 1959. The company was also known as the North British Insurance Company, North British F ...
and staff were evacuated to the newly erected offices and living accommodation in August. The Newland Park Training College was an emergency teacher training college opened at the estate on 1 March 1946.
Newland Park College of Education merged with High Wycombe College of Art and Technology to form Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in 1975. In 1976, the
Chiltern Open Air Museum
Chiltern Open Air Museum (COAM) is an independent open-air museum of vernacular buildings and a tourist attraction located near Chalfont St Peter and Chalfont St. Giles in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, England. Its collection consist ...
was established in the grounds of the estate. In 1989, Amersham Hockey Club was granted a 28-year licence by the college to operate on the estate, and an astroturf pitch was built with funding from Chiltern District Council for use by college students and the club, in the following year.
The television series ''
Class Act
''Class Act'' is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Randall Miller and starring hip-hop duo Kid 'n Play. An urban retelling of Mark Twain's ''The Prince and the Pauper'', the film was written by Cynthia Friedlob and John Semper from a sto ...
'' (1994-1995) and ''
Thief Takers
''Thief Takers'' is a British television crime drama series, created by Roy Mitchell, and produced by Central Independent Television for the ITV network. The series depicts the work of a team of officers based in the Metropolitan Police Servi ...
'' (1995-1997) were partly filmed at Newland Park House. In 1999, the college was awarded university college status, and became known as Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. The 2000 film ''
Cor, Blimey!
''Cor, Blimey!'' is a 2000 TV film that follows the relationship between ''Carry On'' film actors Sid James (played by Geoffrey Hutchings) and Barbara Windsor (played by Samantha Spiro).
The film, first broadcast on ITV in April 2000, was adapte ...
'' was partly filmed at the main entrance to Newland Park. The university was renamed Buckinghamshire New University in 2007, and the university closed its campus at Newland Park on 1 August 2009.
The university sold Newland Park to
Comer Group
Comer Group is an international firm of property developers based in London. The firm was founded in 1971 by the brothers Luke and Brian Comer of County Galway, Ireland. Initially, they worked as plasterers, progressing to large contract plaste ...
on 1 July 2011, and, in 2012, Newland Park House and gardens were leased to an events and weddings company. Newland College opened in September 2015, and was renamed Chalfonts Independent Grammar School in 2017. The Amersham and Chalfont Hockey Club (the successor of Amersham Hockey Club) ceased to operate at Newland Park and relocated to Amersham in spring 2017.
The Comer Group was granted planning permission to build 309 homes at the estate in 2016, but came into conflict with the Chiltern Open Area Museum in 2022 due to a failure to transfer the freehold as per the terms of the planning permission.