Balls Park

The estate and house are set in over 63 acres of parkland which is listed Grade II on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

By the reign of Elizabeth I, it was owned by William Henmarsh, whose only child, Jane, married Richard Willis, a Cambridgeshire landowner and barrister; their children included Thomas and Richard, each created a baronet for service to King Charles I. Thomas, the eldest son and heir, sold Balls Park to Sir John Harrison,[4] a wealthy financier, and customs official, who constructed the present house between 1637 and 1640, possibly to the designs of Nicholas Stone, the king's master-mason.

The building is designed in the so-called Artisan Mannerist style, similar to several other Hertfordshire houses of the same date but shows purer classical traits which suggest metropolitan influences.

In May 1940, Sir Winston Churchill famously said of the nation's art treasures: "Hide them in caves and cellars, but not one picture shall leave this island."

By the time war was declared on 3 September 1939, the majority of the Wallace Collection had been carefully packed for transport and was already safely out of London, away from the risk of damage or destruction from German air raids.

Several years later it was concluded by English Heritage that ‘the optimum viable use’ for this important Carolean country house was into residential apartments.