Minley Manor is a Grade II* listed country manor house, located within a Grade II registered garden, built in the French Gothic style by Henry Clutton in the 1860s with further additions in the 1880s. The Manor is situated 2 miles north of junction 4A of the M3 between Farnborough and Yateley in Hampshire, England and is situated in 80 acres (32 ha) of grounds.[1]
| Minley Manor | |
|---|---|
 Minley Manor | |
| Location | Minley |
| Coordinates | 51°19′01″N 0°49′12″W / 51.317°N 0.820°W |
| Built | 1860 |
| Architect | Henry Clutton |
| Architectural style(s) | French Gothic |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
| Official name | Minley Manor |
| Designated | 26 June 1987 |
| Reference no. | 1258061 |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Official name | Park and Garden |
| Designated | 7 December 1992 |
| Reference no. | 1001264 |
  Shown in Hampshire | |
History
editThe current manor house was built in the French style by Henry Clutton between 1858 and 1860 for Raikes Currie, a partner in Glyn Mills' Bank and a member of the Currie family. Through this bank, they were early financiers of South Australia, a colony developed for the British government, and thus had some ties related to slavery and the colony.[2][3] 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,[4] 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 Sir Reginald Hoare in 1882.[5] Raikes' grandson Laurence Currie built a water tower, created a new complex of walled gardens and further extended the ornamental planting and woodland.[3]
The property passed to the War Office in 1934, initially for the Senior Wing of the nearby Staff College, Camberley.[6] It was used by the Royal Engineers, 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.[3]
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[7] which was sold to an international investor in November 2014.[8] 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.[9]
On the 22 October 2018 a large fire engulfed the water tower, part of the Minley Manor estate.[10] 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.[11]
In popular culture
editOne of the main features is a 600-metre Wellingtonia tree avenue, which was shown off to good effect in the 1969 movie Mosquito Squadron, where the manor house played the part of a French château used as a prisoner of war camp and factory for the V-1 flying bomb. The manor was also used as a location in the 2007 Victorian fantasy movie Stardust, starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer.[12]
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.[13] The grounds of Minley Manor featured in the Netflix movie, Enola Holmes, released in 2020.[14]
References
edit- ^ "Minley Manor". Ad locations. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ Coventry, CJ (2019). "Links in the Chain: British slavery, Victoria and South Australia". Before/Now. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
- ^ a b c "Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest". English Heritage. Archived from the original on 9 June 2013.
- ^ "F W Meyer". Parks and Gardens. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ "Reginald Hoare". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ "Number of Land Forces Army Estimates, 1949–50". Hansard. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ "Heritage Report 2009" (PDF). Ministry of Defence. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ "Historic Minley Manor sold to international investor". Insider Media. 18 November 2014. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- ^ "Planning Application 19/01539/PREAPP". Hart Borough Council. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- ^ "Crews remain at Minley Manor following huge overnight fire". Get Surrey. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- ^ "Planning Application 19/02704/LBC". Hart Borough Council. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
- ^ "Lights Camera Action! MOD provides movie backdrops". Defence News. Archived from the original on 4 September 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ "Detective Pickachu Locations". British Film Locations. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
- ^ "Minley Manor, Enola Holmes (2020)". Screen It. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
