Coldeast
| Coldeast | |
| Hampshire | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU50580806 |
| Location: | 50°52’12"N, 1°16’57"W |
| Village: | Park Gate |
| History | |
| country house | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Converted to other uses |
Coldeast is a former manor house, which was later a psychiatric hospital, between Park Gate and Sarisbury in Hampshire. The house is used today as a wedding and conference venue and much of the former grounds are being redeveloped for housing and the construction of a new leisure centre.
The house is by the town of Fareham, in the south of the county, between Park Gate and Sarisbury. The site is a little over half a mile north-east of the River Hamble.
History
Previously part of the manors of Titchfield and Swanwick, Cold East Farm was located on the site of today's manor house in 1765. In 1837 it was owned by Robert Cawte and occupied by William Cawte, but a few years later was in the hands of the Hornby family.[1]
The house was occupied by Arthur Hornby, a horse trader, by the 1840s and the 1851 census shows that three staff lived there with him. The Hornby family were wealthy local landowners, and extended the house and grounds during their tenure, adding stables, dungeon, outhouses, two lodge houses and carriage drives lined by avenues of trees, all of which appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1868. As well as Coldeast, the family owned Hook House near Warsash, where William Hornby lived until his death in 1869. Arthur Hornby inherited the house and decided to move there, selling Coldeast, which was described as his "favourite abode in the sales notice. The notice described a moderate sized house and listed pleasure grounds, kitchen gardens, vineries, parkland, heathland and sea views among the assets on the 150-acre estate.
Nathaniel and Emma Montefiore bought the estate in 1870[1][2] and continued to develop it, adding glasshouses and formalising the grounds, reflected on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1897 and 1909. Their son, Claude Montefiore, spent part of his childhood there in the early 20th century.[3]
The estate was sold again in 1924 to Hampshire County Council[2] The council added a further 170 acres to the estate and converted it to use as a psychiatric hospital, adding a boundary fence and ditch alongside the main road and building additional patient accommodation on the site.[1]
During the Second World War, part of the site was occupied by an emergency hospital and allotments. The formal gardens were largely unchanged but the more able patients were encouraged to take part in farming some of the land until 1964, when parts of the estate were sold off for housing.
Conversion to a hospital meant many of the original features of the house were removed or replaced, including a large oval staircase which was replaced by concrete steps, and the its listed building status was revoked
The complex was left empty in 1996 and began to decay.
By around 2009, plans had been made for the house to be converted into a hotel but the developer pulled out and a new property developer took on the restoration of the house. The building was rotten and infested by pigeons, with water pouring through the floors and filling the basement.
The Meadows psychiatric unit which had been built in the grounds of the house closed in 2012. In 2013 it was determined that the Coldeast site was no longer required for the National Health Service, and it was assumed that the original house would be demolished and replaced by modern housing. The house was saved however, for conversion to other uses, though much of the surrounding estate was given over to housing development.
In 2015 the process to restore and convert of the house into a wedding and conference venue was completed, with three main event rooms on the ground floor and 38 suites upstairs. The garden had been completely overgrown but was also being restored, with the original walled garden reported to be "in a lovely state" in March 2015.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Coldeast (Gold East, Cold East Farm, Coldeast Hospital): Hampshire Garden Trust Research
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Coldeast Mansion Wedding Venue: hitched.co.uk
- ↑ Knox, Katharine; Kushner, Tony (12 October 2012) (in en). Refugees in an Age of Genocide: Global, National and Local Perspectives During the Twentieth Century. Routledge. pp. 38. ISBN 9781136313196. https://books.google.com/books?id=T0MsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA38.