Fairford Park is a estate in the southern Cotswolds in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England, close to the small town of

Fairford Fairford is a town in Gloucestershire, England. The town lies in the Cotswold hills on the River Coln, east of Cirencester, west of Lechlade and north of Swindon. Nearby are RAF Fairford and the Cotswold Water Park. History Evidence of ...

. Purchased by

Ernest Cook Ernest Edward Cook (4 September 1865 – 14 March 1955) was an English philanthropist and businessman. He was a grandson of Thomas Cook, the travel entrepreneur. Cook was born in Camberwell, London and educated at Mill Hill School, as were his t ...

from the Barker family in 1945, the former stables and coach house of Fairford Park House are used as the headquarters of the

Ernest Cook Trust The Ernest Cook Trust is a large educational charity in England. It was founded in 1952 by the philanthropist Ernest Cook, the grandson of Thomas Cook. Each year the Trustees distribute more than £1.25m in educational grants to benefit children a ...

, which now owns the estate. At the time of its sale, the estate occupied about , but it has since been added to by the purchase of surrounding farms: Court Farm in 1966, Hooks Farm at Southrop Airfield in 1967, Homeleaze Farm in 1975, and Donkeywell Farm in 1982. The estate comprises five let farms, mainly arable with some grazing along the valley of the

River Coln The River Coln is a river in Gloucestershire, England. It rises to the north of Brockhampton, a village to the east of Cheltenham, and flows in a south/south-easterly direction through the Cotswold Hills via Andoversford, Withington, Fosseb ...

, and about of woodland. During 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 17th-century Fairford Park House was used as an American military hospital, and until 1959 Polish refugees were housed in a camp in the park. The house was demolished in the 1950s, and its site is now occupied by Farmor's Comprehensive School.

References

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