The Wilton Park Estate is located in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire.

History

The Wilton park estate once belonged to the monks of

Burnham Abbey Burnham Abbey was a house of Augustinian canonesses regular near Burnham in Buckinghamshire, England. It was founded in 1266 by Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall. The abbey of St Mary consisted of around twenty nuns at the outset, but was never weal ...

. It is mentioned in 1412, with John Amond as farmer. In 1702 it was acquired by the Basill family, who built a house on the estate. Sometime between 1760 and 1770 they sold the estate to Josias Du Pré, the future Governor of Madras. He commissioned the building of a mansion house on the estate, also known as the "White House", from

Richard Jupp Richard Jupp (1728 – 17 April 1799) was an 18th-century English architect, particularly associated with buildings in and around London. He served for many years (c. 1755 – 1799) as surveyor to the British East India Company. Works His wor ...

which was completed in 1779. In 1939 the house was taken over by 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 ...

and used as an interrogation centre for

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

prisoners of war: German refugees working for the Allies would listen in secret into prisoners' conversations. After 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 ...

the house was used by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to re-educate prisoners of war into the British way of life: between January 1946 and June 1948 approx 4,500 Germans were made to attend re-education classes there. The house went on to become the home of the Army School of Administration from 1949 and also the home of the Army School of Education from 1950. The Foreign Office "re-education" facility, still known as

Wilton Park Wilton Park is an executive agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office providing a global forum for strategic discussion. Based since 1951 at Wiston House in Sussex, it organises over 70 dialogues a year in the UK and overs ...

and still organising conferences, moved out in 1951 and is now based at

Wiston House Wiston House is a 16th-century Grade I listed building set in the South Downs National Park on the south coast of England, surrounded by over of parkland in Wiston, West Sussex. It is the home of Wilton Park, an executive agency of the Foreign a ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. A single-storey blockhouse was constructed in the grounds of Wilton Park in 1954, to provide a protected wartime headquarters for the senior Army officers of Eastern Command and London District. From 1957, alternative provision was made for the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command and his staff as part of the Regional Seats of Government planning; but the blockhouse was retained and remained available for use by London District until the

end of the Cold War End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to: End *In mathematics: **End (category theory) ** End (topology) ** End (graph theory) ** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous) ** End (endomorphism) *In sports and games ** End (gridiron footb ...

. In the 1960s a Defence School of Languages was established on the site (

Colonel Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

studied there at that time). Although the house was demolished in 1968, the school remained on the site until April 2014. In September 2014 a single story building known as the "Shean Block" was demolished. Standing sets for filming the ITV TV series '' Endeavour'' were built at Wilton Park in 2016. In December 2019, Inland Homes was granted planning permission to develop the site and create 146 new homes. In April 2022 a relief road, providing improved access to the site was opened up to the public. In September 2020, the historian, Helen Fry, published a book titled "MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two" describing what went on at Wilton Park during the Second World War and its subsequent use up to and including the 21st century. Fire at Wilton park 2022

In March 2022, a fire broke out at Wilton Park. It took three hours to get the fire under control: a building in between the fifteen story tower block and Defence School of languages was destroyed but nobody was hurt. In May 2022, Inland Homes sold part of the site to another developer, Beechcroft Developments, for £19 million.

References

{{reflist Country houses in Buckinghamshire British country houses destroyed in the 20th century World War II prisoner of war camps in England Houses completed in 1779