Pendley Manor is a hotel, conference and function centre near
Tring
Tring is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Dacorum, Hertfordshire, England. It is situated in a gap passing through the Chiltern Hills, classed as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, from Central London. Tring is linked to ...
,
Hertfordshire, UK. It is a historic country house and is
Grade II listed as an important example of
Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian we ...
.
History
![Tring Barkhamsted map 1659](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Tring_Barkhamsted_map_1659.jpg)
A village of Pendley (or ''Penley'', ''Pendele'', or ''Pentlai'') is recorded from the 4th century AD, held in the
honour
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
of
Berkhampstead. The manor of Pendley pre-dates the
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...
of 1066, after which it was confiscated by
William the Conqueror
William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
and passed to his brother-in-law,
Robert, Count of Mortain, who became one of the greatest landholders in the newly conquered
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, ...
.
A later owner was
John de Angle, an early Member of Parliament.
The Whittinghams and the Verneys
By the 15th century, Pendley was a small town. In 1440 the
county sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire Sir Robert Whittingham (or ''Whytingham'') and his wife Agnes received a grant of
free warren
A free warren—often simply warren—is a type of franchise or privilege conveyed by a sovereign in medieval England to an English subject, promising to hold them harmless for killing game of certain species within a stipulated area, u ...
from
King Henry VI at Pendley manor; Sir Robert enclosed 200 acres and tore down the buildings on the land, returning the estate to
pasture
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...
.
He built a manor house at the western end of the now-demolished town as a
double cloistered courtyard
A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky.
Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...
similar to those found at
Herstmonceux Castle
Herstmonceux Castle is a brick-built castle, dating from the 15th century, near Herstmonceux, East Sussex, England. It is one of the oldest significant brick buildings still standing in England. The castle was renowned for being one of the fir ...
and
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...
.
Whittingham subsequently obtained a
papal licence
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
to build a
chapel
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...
at the manor house and engage a priest to hold services there when the roads became impassable in winter.
On the accession of
King Edward IV, Whittingham's fortunes changed; the king
attainded Whittingham for his loyalty to Henry and in 1461 he granted Pendley manor to
George Neville,
Bishop of Exeter. Around 1472, Whittingham's daughter Margaret married John Verney, son of a
Lord Mayor of London
The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional pow ...
Sir Ralph de Verney. Because of the king's favour for Verney, he lifted the attainder on Whittingham and Pendley Manor land passed to the
Verney family
The Verney family purchased the manor of Middle Claydon in Buckinghamshire, England, in the 1460s and still resides there today at the manor house known as Claydon House. This family had been seated previously at Fleetmarston in Buckinghamshire ...
.
The Andersons and the Harcourts
The Verney family lived at the medieval manor for the next 150 years. The
Anderson family
The Anderson family is a group of professional wrestlers, a part fictional, part real, extended family largely consisting of brothers, cousins and children.
Gene Anderson
NWA Hall of Famer Gene Anderson (the only actual 'Anderson' of the origi ...
then occupied it for four generations from 1606-7.
In 1630, a friend of Sir Richard Anderson, the
Rev. Lawrence Washington, visited Pendley Manor. During his stay there he became acquainted with
Amphyllis Twigden and began a love affair with her. As a fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford, Washington was prohibited from marrying, and in 1631 Amphyllis bore him a son out of wedlock. Eventually Archbishop
William Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...
granted the couple a licence to marry, and Lawrence and Amphyllis were married in Tring in late 1632. Their son,
John Washington
John Washington (1633–1677) was an English merchant who emigrated across the Atlantic Ocean and became a planter, soldier and politician in colonial Virginia. In addition to leading the local militia, and running his own plantations, Washin ...
, emigrated to
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
in 1657. The Washington family became established in the new colony, and over a century later in 1789, John's great-grandson,
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
, became the first
President of the United States of America
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
.
In 1677, Anderson's daughter Elizabeth married the politician
Simon Harcourt. Sir Richard Anderson died in 1699, and he was buried in the Pendley Chapel in the Church of St John the Baptist in the neighbouring village of
Aldbury
Aldbury () is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, near the borders of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the Bulbourne valley close to Ashridge Park. The nearest town is Tring. Uphill from the narrow valley are the Brid ...
, alongside his wife Dame Elizabeth Anderson and their other children. As the young Elizabeth was the Anderson family's only surviving child, Pendley Manor passed through marriage to the
Harcourt family.
In the 1830s, at the height of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, railway engineer
Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson FRS HFRSE FRSA DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father ...
began construction on the new
London and Birmingham Railway
The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR).
The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...
. The project was delayed by opposition from local landowners (among them
Lord Brownlow and Sir
Astley Cooper
Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1st Baronet (23 August 176812 February 1841) was a British surgeon and anatomist, who made contributions to otology, vascular surgery, the anatomy and pathology of the mammary glands and testicles, and the patholog ...
); after a change in the planned route, parliamentary approval was granted, and the railway line was built along a route parallel to the
Grand Junction Canal, some distance to the east of Tring
— but too close to Pendley Manor to suit the occupant,
Sir William Harcourt. He regarded the incursion of the
iron horse
''Iron horse'' is an iconic literary term (considered by the early 21st century to be transitioning into an archaic reference) for a steam locomotive, originating in the early 1800s, when horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domes ...
into the locality as an intolerable nuisance and abandoned Pendley Manor. The ancient medieval manor buildings burnt down soon after in 1835.
[''Pendley Manor - A short history''. Available at the hotel reception. November 2011]
The new manor
A Local landowner and mill owner, Joseph Grout Williams commissioned architect
Walter F K Ryan to build a new Tudor style Manor, the present building, in 1872. He and his descendants then occupied the Victorian Manor from 1875 until 1983.
The last private owner was BBC
show jumping commentator
Dorian Williams
Dorian Joseph George Williams OBE (1 July 1914 – 21 July 1985) was a British equestrian
The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse".
Horseback riding (or Riding in Britis ...
, who developed it as a center for adult education and the arts after the second World War. He inaugurated the
Pendley Open Air Shakespeare Festival
The Pendley Open Air Shakespeare Festival is, as the name implies, an annual festival dedicated to the plays of William Shakespeare. It takes place at the beginning of August at Pendley Manor, a hotel in Tring, Hertfordshire.
History
The first of ...
in 1949 in the hotel grounds which continues to run to the present day.
The grounds have two landscaped open-air theatres. The indoor
Court Theatre has permanently occupied the former stables to the estate since 1978 and presents a full programme of drama and musical performance.
[http://www.courttheatre.co.uk/index.html The Court Theatre]
The house was sold to a property company in 1983 and then in 1989 to a hotel company which invested in the building and re-opened it as a country house hotel in 1991. There have since been several extensions built to house additional rooms, a spa and gymnasium and a banqueting / conference suite.
Architecture
The present building was erected c.1874 near the site of the old manor house. It was designed in a
neo-Jacobean style by the architect
Walter F K Ryan and it built in
red brick
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
with
Bath stone dressings. Architectural features include a
half-timbered jettied
Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of increasing the avail ...
top floor; tall decorated brick
chimney pots; a square tower with an
ogee
An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinat ...
-shaped lead roof; ornamental
herringbone brickwork, carved Jacobean-style
Ionic pilaster
In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...
s and
stucco panels. The date 1875 is carved in stone above the porch.
References
*
External links
Official Hotel website
{{Listed buildings in Hertfordshire
Hotels in Hertfordshire
Country houses in Hertfordshire
Grade II listed buildings in Hertfordshire
Jacobethan architecture
Houses completed in 1874
Grade II listed houses
Grade II listed hotels
Verney family
Renaissance Revival architecture in England
Country house hotels
1874 establishments in England