Broome Hall

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Broome Hall
Surrey
Broome Hall - geograph.org.uk - 156000.jpg
Broome Hall
Location
Grid reference: TQ15054253
Location: 51°10’14"N, 0°21’21"W
Village: Coldharbour
History
Built c. 1830
For: Andrew Spottiswoode
Country house
Information

Broome Hall is a country house and estate south of Coldharbour in Surrey. It was built around 1830 for the politician and printer Andrew Spottiswoode, and had a succession of owners before being converted into flats in the twentieth century. It is Grade-II listed.

19th century

The house was built about 1830 for the politician and printer Andrew Spottiswoode, and extended in the late 19th century for Sir Alexander Brown, 1st Baronet.[1] It was also home from 1865 to the politician Frederick Pennington (died 1914) and his suffragette wife Margaret.[2][3]

20th century

In the Second World War, Broome Hall was used as the headquarters of the Canadian forces.[4]

In 1954, the White Fathers, Christian missionaries in Africa and an order of monks, bought the property and used it as their British novitiate, for training new monks.[4]

The actor Oliver Reed bought the house from the monks, and lived there in the late 1960s until the 1980s.[4] According to Reed's biographer Robert Sellers, Reed only bought the house because he wanted a field to keep his horse in, but then spent a fortune renovating it.[5] The naked wrestling scene with Reed and Alan Bates in Ken Russell's 1969 film Women in Love is said to have been filmed there.[4] Reed was banned from his local pub there for descending a chimney naked and shouting out: "Ho! Ho! Ho! I'm Santa Claus."[4] According to legend, Reed buried the jewellery collection of a former girlfriend in the grounds where it still lies.[4]

The house was then bought by a property developer who converted it into flats.[4] It was Grade-II listed with Historic England in 1987.[1]

Outside links

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References

  • Sellers, Robert: 'What Fresh Lunacy is This?' (Constable, 2014)