Hanbury Manor is a converted late-Victorian country house operated by Marriott Hotels as part of the Hanbury Manor Marriott Hotel & Country Club with an adjoining golf course in Thundridge, north of Ware, Hertfordshire, 10 mi north of Greater London. The house is Grade II* listed on the National Heritage List for England.[1]
History
Grant of land to Reginald Pole (1500-1558)
A purported manor here derives from ownership of a grand house approximately on the site of the current house in the 16th century. A manor is a leading family estate typically with farmland and other manorial rights across a wider area. The longstanding mention of the estate as 'Poles' derives from the erection of a major house (and possible subinfeudation of some of the Church Manor's rights rather than inheritance of a medieval manor) to Reginald Pole, a cardinal before Henry VIII's English Reformation. His mother The Blessèd Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury was the last legitimate Plantagenet based on strict patrilineality. He served two years as the last catholic Archbishop of Canterbury and died 12 hours after Queen Mary I of England.
Sampson Hanbury (1769–1835)
During the final years of the 18th century the Hanbury family chose to settle here (first becoming lessees) and later purchasers. This branch of the Hanbury family had Norman noble ancestry; forebear Geoffrey De Hanbury (a Norman first name) settled in Worcestershire in the 14th century. Sampson Hanbury bought Poles outright about the year 1800. From 1799 to 1830 he was
Poles Convent
In 1923 the house was purchased by the Faithful Companions of Jesus with the intent of establishing a convent school.[5] The house was transformed in 1934 with the addition of a gym, classrooms, dormitories, a three-storeyed tower, and a new chapel. From 1974, some girls from the convent school progressed into the sixth form of nearby St Edmund's College, Ware, although the two schools were independently managed. By the time the school closed in 1986 the separate St Edmund's College was fully co-educational.[7][8]
Notable former pupils
- Terry Keane (1939-2008) - Irish social columnist and fashion journalist[9]
Hotel
The estate was redeveloped and extended over a three-year period by Landbase Ltd as a 5-star hotel and country club, opening in 1990 with RockResorts as the first operator.[10] The development was majority funded by local building firm Hubert C Leach.
The former parts of the main building whilst a convent school having been a gym, chapel and classrooms, formed the base for a conference and banqueting centre set around the courtyard. The latter-day chapel, renamed Poles Hall, forms the main banqueting hall. The development in 1988/89 added a wing onto the main building containing swimming pool, gym, changing rooms, squash courts, bar, brasserie restaurant, and billiard room.[11] An annexe next to the walled garden (known as the Garden Court) added 53 bedrooms at the same time.[12]
Country Club Hotel Group took over as the hotel operator in 1994,[13] and subsequently was bought out by Marriott International
External links
References
- {{NHLE|num=1204101|desc=Poles Convent (FCJ)|access-date=25 October 2017|mode=cs2}}^
- Jillian Hanbury. The Hanburys of England Antony Maitland, 15 July 2007, retrieved 29 March 2010^
- London Metropolitan Archives > Truman Hanbury Buxton and Co Ltd (Brewers) retrieved 27 March 2010^