Westbrook Hay

Westbrook Hay was built in the 17th century and remained in the ownership of the Ryder family (Richard Ryder, then Granville Ryder and then Dudley Ryder)^[1] until the Second World War, after which it became the headquarters of the Hemel Hempstead New Town Development corporation.^[2]

A Grade II listed building on the National Heritage List for England,^[3] Westbrook Hay School is in a rural location on 26 acres of parkland overlooking the Bourne valley, off the A41 between Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire.^[4]

During the 1950s, the 590 m (650 yd) drive became the Westbrook Hay Hill Climb.^[5] The building began housing a school in 1963, and it was listed on the National Heritage List in 1966 as "Westbrook Hay School".^[3]

Westbrook Hay Prep School is a co-educational independent school for children from rising 3–16 years. Augustus Orlebar, a former housemaster at Radley College, established the school in 1892 in Bedford as a boarding school for boys. It moved to Hinwick House near Wellingborough shortly thereafter, when it was named "Hinwick House School",^[6] and then to Gadebridge House in Hemel Hempstead in 1914.^[7] The school remained there until the Commission for New Towns forced it out of those premises as part of the development of the new town in 1963.^[8] That year the school moved to Westbrook Hay and took its present name.^[4]