Tring Park
Encyclopedia
Tring Park is a large country house near Tring
, Hertfordshire
.
The Manor of Tring is first mentioned in the Domesday Book
where it is referred to as "Treunge" and was owned by Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, a countryman of William the Conqueror. The Count's daughter Matilda of Boulogne
inherited it from her father and went on to marry Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror. He later became King Stephen of England.
In 1148 King Stephen and Queen Matilda founded the Cluniac order of St Saviour at Faversham
in Kent
and the Manor of Tring was presented to the abbey. It was later exchanged for other properties with the Archbishop of Canterbury
. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries during the 1530s, the manor was confiscated and became Crown property
and remained in Royalist
hands up to the reign of Charles I
.
In 1650 Charles I arranged to have the manor transferred to his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, only to have it confiscated by Parliamentary Forces during the English Civil War
.
When Charles II
came to the throne in the English Restoration
in 1660, he gave the house to his Groom of the Bedchamber, Sir Henry Guy in 1680. Guy became Secretary to the Treasury and it was widely believed that he used this position to subsidise the construction of a new manor house to a design by Sir Christopher Wren. Guy was sent to the Tower of London
soon after William and Mary
came to the thone in the Glorious Revolution
in 1688 on account of his misappropriation of Treasury funds.
Tring Park was sold in 1705 to Sir William Gore, Lord Mayor of London
during the reign of Queen Anne
. After only two years at Tring Sir William died and his son Charles inherited the estate. It was Charles Gore who was responsible for diverting the main Aylesbury
to Berkhamsted
road from its existing course through the park – which took it straight past the front door of the mansion – to its present route, following considerably flatter terrain further north along the course of what has now become Tring High Street.
The property passed through two further generations of the Gore family before being sold to Sir Drummond Smith, a London banker, in 1786. He made extensive changes both to the park and the house, which until that time had remained unaltered from Wren’s original design.
The contours of the parklands were smoothed and flattened to present a more naturalistic outlook in keeping with the style of Capability Brown that was in vogue at the time and the interior of the house was extensively remodelled along the entire south range of reception rooms with the exception of the library, which retained its seventeenth century ceiling. The drawing room and sitting rooms were given moulded and carved plaster ceilings in the rococo style, complete with cherubs and garlands.
Sir Drummond Smith died in 1823 without an heir and the estate was sold to William Kay, a Manchester
textile magnate for the sum of £90,000. Two years later, Kay’s brother built the silk-throwing mill in Brook Street, providing employment for over six hundred people. William Kay’s son inherited the house in 1838 and it was from this time that Nathan Mayer Rothschild
began renting it as a summer home.
When the Kays decided to sell Tring Park in 1872, Baron Lionel de Rothschild
bought Tring Park and its 3643 acres (14.7 km²), which also included the manors of Miswell, Hastoe, Dunsley and Willstone for £
230,000 – this equates to about £8,000,000 in today’s money. Lionel gave the property to his son, Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild as a belated wedding gift. The location was very convenient since he had been Member of Parliament
for Aylesbury since 1865 and the Rothschild family had also acquired a number of estates in the area.
In 1872 the family moved to Tring with their son Walter Rothschild, aged four; their daughter Evelina and second son Charles Rothschild
were both born at Tring. The family divided their time between their London home at 148 Piccadilly and Tring Park. Lady Rothschild preferred to remain at Tring with her children throughout much of the year and quite often her husband would be on his own at the sprawling London residence, surrounded by dust-sheeted furniture.
Sir Nathaniel became Lord Rothschild in 1885, the first Jewish peer raised to the House of Lords, just as his father, Lionel, had been the first Jewish Member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons. Lionel was first elected in 1847 but was unable to take his seat in the Commons for another eleven years until the discriminatory legislation against Jews was removed.
During the late 1880s Lord Rothschild began making significant structural alterations to the house: in 1889 work began on the Smoking Room extension to designs by George Devey
and the whole house was refaced in red brick with white ashlar dressing. The conservatory and orangery were demolished (thereby removing the last tenuous link with Nell Gwynne) and the foundations used for the base of the new Smoking Room. In the same year the whole roof was lifted and a full-height top floor was inserted, replacing the mezzanine, with a slate Mansard roof
complete with its French-style finials and a ten-foot gilded weathervane.
Lord Rothschild continued to make alterations to Tring Park and these included the controversial rebuilding of the London Lodge in 1895 when two pavilions, believed to be part of Wren’s original design and which originally stood on either side of the London Road, were demolished. Despite local protests, the buildings were razed and replaced with a mock-Tudor cottage designed by Tring architect William Huckvale who rebuilt many of the estate’s properties in and around Tring.
The cupola from one of the Wren pavilions was removed and mounted on the stable block designed by James Gibbs
.
Other alterations to the house included the remodelling of the entrance (east) front where the portico, which had originally faced onto the former Aylesbury to Berkhamsted road through the park, was demolished and a new porte-cochere was built on the north front. The east front was rebuilt with a shallow bow window rising through all three floors and the former entrance hall enclosed by large glass doors at the first set of columns to form another reception room. This room, the Morning Room, originally had a double-height ceiling but was given a massive barrel-vault in order to reduce the visible height of the room.
By this time Walter Rothschild had become a young man. It was by then clear that he had no interest in the family’s banking business. His passion was zoology and it was to this end that he devoted his life’s work. The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum
was built in the grounds in 1889 as a twenty-first birthday present. This housed his massive collection of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles and insects. In 1892 the museum opened to the public and three new wings were added between 1906 and 1912 – the Bird Wing, the Library and the Lepidoptera Hall – in order to accommodate the huge numbers of specimens, amassed by Walter personally and the collectors he employed on his behalf.
Walter's father had always disapproved of his son's consuming interest in zoology and after a particularly serious disagreement – principally with regard to Walter’s inability to control his finances concerning the museum – he disinherited his elder son. Whilst the title would pass to Walter, the house and estate were all left to his younger brother, Charles.
Although disinherited, Walter had been by no means cut off without a penny: his father had given him a capital sum of a million pounds to live off. In 1908 this was an indescribably large amount and by the time of his Natty’s death in 1915, Walter’s finances were well in hand and he as able to mount overseas expeditions to locate new and exotic specimens as well as to purchase existing collections wholesale.
The museum’s displays included two-and-a-half million butterflies, set under glass, over three hundred thousand bird skins and copious specimens of mammals and reptiles. These remain to this day supreme examples of Victorian taxidermy.
As a result of Walter’s zoological pursuits, Tring Park housed not only his well known zebras but also emus, rheas and kangaroos which roamed wild in the parklands. The kangaroos were a nightmare for the gardeners: at 6.30 in the morning, Lord Rothschild would often go riding before breakfast. The kangaroos, with total disregard for the ha-ha separating the park from the grounds, would jump up and spend time roaming around the lawns, digging up and eating the flowers in the formal beds around the drawing room terrace. The gardeners, who had been up since 5am, then had to quickly replant these before Lord Rothschild appeared at the stables.
Walter assumed the title of 2nd Lord Rothschild of Tring in 1915. Three years later, after the end of World War I
, the family donated the house’s lily pond and immediate grounds to the townspeople of Tring and it became the Memorial Gardens. Once it became evident that Walter would not marry, Lady Rothschild sold her dower house, Champneys
near Wigginton
, in 1923.
Walter lived alone with his mother for the rest of her life and after living at Tring for more than sixty years, Lady Rothschild died peacefully on 8 January 1935 aged 91. Under the terms of his father’s will, Walter was now obliged to move out of Tring Park and the house and estate now passed to his brother Charles’s branch of the family.
Just two years later the 2nd Baron Rothschild of Tring died in his sleep on 27 August 1937 and the following year Victor, Charles’s son – now the 3rd Lord – offered the museum and its collections to the British Museum
. Walter’s private museum now became part of the Natural History Museum
at South Kensington.
The final dissolution of the Tring Park estate came in October 1938 when the estate was broken up and sold piecemeal. It consisted of eleven farms, numerous smallholdings, allotments, cottages and shops in Tring, Aston Clinton
, Bucklands, Drayton Beauchamp
, Cholesbury
, Wigginton
, Marsworth
and Long Marston
as well as the stud farm in Akeman Street
During World War II
the house was used by the N M Rothschild & Sons
bank, as a repository for the safe-keeping of documents and valuables outside London. The Tring Home Guard
also used the park grounds for exercises and training.
After the end of the war, the bank had no further use for the house and the new Lord Rothschild had no desire to reinstate and house. The mansion was leased by the Prudential Assurance Company and in 1945 was leased and subsequently purchased by the Cone-Ripman School which, in turn, became the Arts Educational School, Tring Park.
In 1975 the A41 Tring Bypass was opened, splitting the former parklands in two. The mansion and its immediate grounds are still home to the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts.
and managed by the Woodland Trust
. Half of the 300 acres (1.2 km²) is undulating grassland, grazed by cattle. To the east and south and the park includes the wooded chiltern escarpment in which there are former carriage rides. One of these, the King's Ride, forms part of the Ridgeway National Trail. In this part of the park are two structures: an obelisk known locally as Nell Gwynne's monument, and the remains of the entrance portico from one of the former estate cottages; the latter has been locally referred to as a folly, summer house and temple.
Tring
Tring is a small market town and also a civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire, England. Situated north-west of London and linked to London by the old Roman road of Akeman Street, by the modern A41, by the Grand Union Canal and by rail lines to Euston Station, Tring is now largely a...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
.
The Manor of Tring is first mentioned in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
where it is referred to as "Treunge" and was owned by Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, a countryman of William the Conqueror. The Count's daughter Matilda of Boulogne
Matilda of Boulogne
Matilda I was suo jure Countess of Boulogne. She was also queen consort of England as the wife of King Stephen.-Biography:...
inherited it from her father and went on to marry Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror. He later became King Stephen of England.
In 1148 King Stephen and Queen Matilda founded the Cluniac order of St Saviour at Faversham
Faversham
Faversham is a market town and civil parish in the Swale borough of Kent, England. The parish of Faversham grew up around an ancient sea port on Faversham Creek and was the birthplace of the explosives industry in England.-History:...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
and the Manor of Tring was presented to the abbey. It was later exchanged for other properties with the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries during the 1530s, the manor was confiscated and became Crown property
and remained in Royalist
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
hands up to the reign of Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
.
In 1650 Charles I arranged to have the manor transferred to his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, only to have it confiscated by Parliamentary Forces during the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
.
When Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
came to the throne in the English Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
in 1660, he gave the house to his Groom of the Bedchamber, Sir Henry Guy in 1680. Guy became Secretary to the Treasury and it was widely believed that he used this position to subsidise the construction of a new manor house to a design by Sir Christopher Wren. Guy was sent to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
soon after William and Mary
William and Mary
The phrase William and Mary usually refers to the coregency over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, of King William III & II and Queen Mary II...
came to the thone in the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
in 1688 on account of his misappropriation of Treasury funds.
Tring Park was sold in 1705 to Sir William Gore, Lord Mayor of London
Lord Mayor of London
The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...
during the reign of Queen Anne
Queen Anne
"Queen Anne" generally refers to Anne, Queen of Great Britain , Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1702, and of Great Britain from 1707.Queen Anne may also refer to:-Uses relating to Queen Anne of Great Britain:...
. After only two years at Tring Sir William died and his son Charles inherited the estate. It was Charles Gore who was responsible for diverting the main Aylesbury
Aylesbury
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. However the town also falls into a geographical region known as the South Midlands an area that ecompasses the north of the South East, and the southern extremities of the East Midlands...
to Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted
-Climate:Berkhamsted experiences an oceanic climate similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.-Castle:...
road from its existing course through the park – which took it straight past the front door of the mansion – to its present route, following considerably flatter terrain further north along the course of what has now become Tring High Street.
The property passed through two further generations of the Gore family before being sold to Sir Drummond Smith, a London banker, in 1786. He made extensive changes both to the park and the house, which until that time had remained unaltered from Wren’s original design.
The contours of the parklands were smoothed and flattened to present a more naturalistic outlook in keeping with the style of Capability Brown that was in vogue at the time and the interior of the house was extensively remodelled along the entire south range of reception rooms with the exception of the library, which retained its seventeenth century ceiling. The drawing room and sitting rooms were given moulded and carved plaster ceilings in the rococo style, complete with cherubs and garlands.
Sir Drummond Smith died in 1823 without an heir and the estate was sold to William Kay, a Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
textile magnate for the sum of £90,000. Two years later, Kay’s brother built the silk-throwing mill in Brook Street, providing employment for over six hundred people. William Kay’s son inherited the house in 1838 and it was from this time that Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer, Freiherr von Rothschild , known as Nathan Mayer Rothschild, was a London financier and one of the founders of the international Rothschild family banking dynasty...
began renting it as a summer home.
When the Kays decided to sell Tring Park in 1872, Baron Lionel de Rothschild
Lionel de Rothschild
Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild was a British banker and politician.-Biography:The son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Hanna Barent Cohen, he was a member of the prominent Rothschild family....
bought Tring Park and its 3643 acres (14.7 km²), which also included the manors of Miswell, Hastoe, Dunsley and Willstone for £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
230,000 – this equates to about £8,000,000 in today’s money. Lionel gave the property to his son, Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild as a belated wedding gift. The location was very convenient since he had been Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Aylesbury since 1865 and the Rothschild family had also acquired a number of estates in the area.
In 1872 the family moved to Tring with their son Walter Rothschild, aged four; their daughter Evelina and second son Charles Rothschild
Charles Rothschild
Nathaniel Charles Rothschild , known as "Charles", was an English banker and entomologist and a member of the Rothschild family.-Family:...
were both born at Tring. The family divided their time between their London home at 148 Piccadilly and Tring Park. Lady Rothschild preferred to remain at Tring with her children throughout much of the year and quite often her husband would be on his own at the sprawling London residence, surrounded by dust-sheeted furniture.
Sir Nathaniel became Lord Rothschild in 1885, the first Jewish peer raised to the House of Lords, just as his father, Lionel, had been the first Jewish Member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons. Lionel was first elected in 1847 but was unable to take his seat in the Commons for another eleven years until the discriminatory legislation against Jews was removed.
During the late 1880s Lord Rothschild began making significant structural alterations to the house: in 1889 work began on the Smoking Room extension to designs by George Devey
George Devey
George Devey was a British architect, born in London, the second son of Frederick and Ann Devey. Devey was educated in London, after leaving school he initially studied art, with an ambition to become a professional artist...
and the whole house was refaced in red brick with white ashlar dressing. The conservatory and orangery were demolished (thereby removing the last tenuous link with Nell Gwynne) and the foundations used for the base of the new Smoking Room. In the same year the whole roof was lifted and a full-height top floor was inserted, replacing the mezzanine, with a slate Mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
complete with its French-style finials and a ten-foot gilded weathervane.
Lord Rothschild continued to make alterations to Tring Park and these included the controversial rebuilding of the London Lodge in 1895 when two pavilions, believed to be part of Wren’s original design and which originally stood on either side of the London Road, were demolished. Despite local protests, the buildings were razed and replaced with a mock-Tudor cottage designed by Tring architect William Huckvale who rebuilt many of the estate’s properties in and around Tring.
The cupola from one of the Wren pavilions was removed and mounted on the stable block designed by James Gibbs
James Gibbs
James Gibbs was one of Britain's most influential architects. Born in Scotland, he trained as an architect in Rome, and practised mainly in England...
.
Other alterations to the house included the remodelling of the entrance (east) front where the portico, which had originally faced onto the former Aylesbury to Berkhamsted road through the park, was demolished and a new porte-cochere was built on the north front. The east front was rebuilt with a shallow bow window rising through all three floors and the former entrance hall enclosed by large glass doors at the first set of columns to form another reception room. This room, the Morning Room, originally had a double-height ceiling but was given a massive barrel-vault in order to reduce the visible height of the room.
By this time Walter Rothschild had become a young man. It was by then clear that he had no interest in the family’s banking business. His passion was zoology and it was to this end that he devoted his life’s work. The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum
Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum
The Natural History Museum at Tring was the private museum of Lionel Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, today it is under the control of the Natural History Museum. It houses one of the finest collections of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles and insects in the United Kingdom...
was built in the grounds in 1889 as a twenty-first birthday present. This housed his massive collection of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles and insects. In 1892 the museum opened to the public and three new wings were added between 1906 and 1912 – the Bird Wing, the Library and the Lepidoptera Hall – in order to accommodate the huge numbers of specimens, amassed by Walter personally and the collectors he employed on his behalf.
Walter's father had always disapproved of his son's consuming interest in zoology and after a particularly serious disagreement – principally with regard to Walter’s inability to control his finances concerning the museum – he disinherited his elder son. Whilst the title would pass to Walter, the house and estate were all left to his younger brother, Charles.
Although disinherited, Walter had been by no means cut off without a penny: his father had given him a capital sum of a million pounds to live off. In 1908 this was an indescribably large amount and by the time of his Natty’s death in 1915, Walter’s finances were well in hand and he as able to mount overseas expeditions to locate new and exotic specimens as well as to purchase existing collections wholesale.
The museum’s displays included two-and-a-half million butterflies, set under glass, over three hundred thousand bird skins and copious specimens of mammals and reptiles. These remain to this day supreme examples of Victorian taxidermy.
As a result of Walter’s zoological pursuits, Tring Park housed not only his well known zebras but also emus, rheas and kangaroos which roamed wild in the parklands. The kangaroos were a nightmare for the gardeners: at 6.30 in the morning, Lord Rothschild would often go riding before breakfast. The kangaroos, with total disregard for the ha-ha separating the park from the grounds, would jump up and spend time roaming around the lawns, digging up and eating the flowers in the formal beds around the drawing room terrace. The gardeners, who had been up since 5am, then had to quickly replant these before Lord Rothschild appeared at the stables.
Walter assumed the title of 2nd Lord Rothschild of Tring in 1915. Three years later, after the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the family donated the house’s lily pond and immediate grounds to the townspeople of Tring and it became the Memorial Gardens. Once it became evident that Walter would not marry, Lady Rothschild sold her dower house, Champneys
Champneys
Champneys is the brand name of a destination spa group in the United Kingdom. Champneys Health Resorts Group own four spa resorts and has become one of the largest destination spa operators in the world...
near Wigginton
Wigginton
Wigginton may refer to:* Wigginton, Hertfordshire, England* Wigginton, North Yorkshire, England* Wigginton, Oxfordshire, England* Wigginton, Staffordshire, EnglandPeople with the surname Wigginton:...
, in 1923.
Walter lived alone with his mother for the rest of her life and after living at Tring for more than sixty years, Lady Rothschild died peacefully on 8 January 1935 aged 91. Under the terms of his father’s will, Walter was now obliged to move out of Tring Park and the house and estate now passed to his brother Charles’s branch of the family.
Just two years later the 2nd Baron Rothschild of Tring died in his sleep on 27 August 1937 and the following year Victor, Charles’s son – now the 3rd Lord – offered the museum and its collections to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. Walter’s private museum now became part of the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
at South Kensington.
The final dissolution of the Tring Park estate came in October 1938 when the estate was broken up and sold piecemeal. It consisted of eleven farms, numerous smallholdings, allotments, cottages and shops in Tring, Aston Clinton
Aston Clinton
Aston Clinton is a village and civil parish close to the main A41 road in Buckinghamshire, England between Tring and Aylesbury. The parish covers and is about east of Aylesbury. The village is at the foot of the chalk escarpment of the Chiltern Hills at the junction of the pre-historic track the...
, Bucklands, Drayton Beauchamp
Drayton Beauchamp
Drayton Beauchamp is a village and civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the east of the county, near the border boundary Hertfordshire, about six miles from Aylesbury and two miles from Tring.-History:...
, Cholesbury
Cholesbury
Cholesbury is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, on the border with Hertfordshire. It is situated in the Chiltern Hills, about east of Wendover, north of Chesham and from Berkhamsted....
, Wigginton
Wigginton
Wigginton may refer to:* Wigginton, Hertfordshire, England* Wigginton, North Yorkshire, England* Wigginton, Oxfordshire, England* Wigginton, Staffordshire, EnglandPeople with the surname Wigginton:...
, Marsworth
Marsworth
Marsworth is a village and also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about two miles north of Tring, in Hertfordshire and six miles east of Aylesbury.-Early history:...
and Long Marston
Long Marston
Long Marston may refer to:*Long Marston, Hertfordshire*Long Marston, North Yorkshire*Long Marston, Warwickshire...
as well as the stud farm in Akeman Street
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the house was used by the N M Rothschild & Sons
N M Rothschild & Sons
N M Rothschild & Sons is a private investment banking company, belonging to the Rothschild family...
bank, as a repository for the safe-keeping of documents and valuables outside London. The Tring Home Guard
Home Guard
-Military:*British Home Guard*Combat Groups of the Working Class *Confederate Home Guard, during the American Civil War*Croatian Home Guard and Imperial Croatian Home Guard*Danish Home Guard...
also used the park grounds for exercises and training.
After the end of the war, the bank had no further use for the house and the new Lord Rothschild had no desire to reinstate and house. The mansion was leased by the Prudential Assurance Company and in 1945 was leased and subsequently purchased by the Cone-Ripman School which, in turn, became the Arts Educational School, Tring Park.
In 1975 the A41 Tring Bypass was opened, splitting the former parklands in two. The mansion and its immediate grounds are still home to the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts.
Tring Park Today
"Tring Park" now usually refers to that part of the original estate south of the A41. It is public open space, owned by Dacorum Borough CouncilDacorum Borough Council
Dacorum Borough Council is the local authority for the Dacorum non-metropolitan district of England, the United Kingdom. Dacorum is located in the north-west of Hertfordshire, in the East of England region. The Council itself is based in Hemel Hempstead, the largest settlement in the district.The...
and managed by the Woodland Trust
Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom concerned with the protection and sympathetic management of native woodland heritage.-History:...
. Half of the 300 acres (1.2 km²) is undulating grassland, grazed by cattle. To the east and south and the park includes the wooded chiltern escarpment in which there are former carriage rides. One of these, the King's Ride, forms part of the Ridgeway National Trail. In this part of the park are two structures: an obelisk known locally as Nell Gwynne's monument, and the remains of the entrance portico from one of the former estate cottages; the latter has been locally referred to as a folly, summer house and temple.