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History of the Mansion, Tring Park
The Old Manor House of Great Tring
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The first
records of this house have not been traced. We know that it
was in royal hands during Charles I’s unhappy reign, and
his children may have stayed here with their mother. However,
the position of this great house, set in the centre of a long
Chiltern parish abutting manors of John Hampden, no doubt severed
these royal associations until the Restoration. |
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II bestowed the house on Henry Guy, his Groom of the Bedchamber,
who enclosed the 250 acres of the park against the wishes
of the people of Tring. Guy now built a new house planned
by Sir Christopher Wren, this being one of the very few country
houses he designed, although only small parts remain in the
house today.
The gardens were of unusual form and beauty, one in Nell Gwynn’s
Avenue on the north side of the house and the park was landscaped
to theskyline to the south where King Charles’ Ride
was formed with Nell Gwynn’s Monument as a feature.
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Charles II |
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It is not proved that “Sweet Nell” did in fact live here, but local
legend is firm that she did and this cannot be disproved.
Local gossip that Guy was building his house with pickings
from the Treasury was certainly near the mark.
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Nell Gwynn
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Parliament sent Guy to the Tower when William III came
to the throne. William himself visited the house in June 1690
and in 1705 it was sold to the Lord Mayor of London, Sir William
Gore.
The house and manor passed from family to family of great
merchants and bankers without many changes until 1872 when
Chinnock Galsworthy and Chinnock (John Galsworthy, a junior
member of the firm, came to Tring) sold it to Baron Lionel
Rothschild for £230,000 the contents of the house to
be taken at an additional valuation.
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The house was then greatly enlarged (Wren’s house being
enclosed within the present building) to hold many guests.
King Edward VII, as Prince of Wales,
visited the House, Gladstone, while Prime Minister, and Lord
Rosebery, all friends of the first Lord Rothschild (Nathaniel).
Walter, second Lord Rothschild, whose 21st Birthday Avenue
runs from the House to the southwest, stocked the park with
rare animals and built the Museum.
With the outbreak of the war in 1939 the house became the
wartime home of the Rothschild Bank; the last of the deer
in the park were removed and the house settled down to losing
its family character only to regain it again when it became
the Arts Educational School.
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