Minley Manor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| 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 | |
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]
The 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]
