Cams Hall

After the death of John Ludlow in 1583, his widow married Emmanuel Badd, High Sheriff of Hampshire, who is believed to have constructed a house on the estate around 1620.

The estate then had a succession of different owners and when it was again put up for sale in 1767 and purchased by Sir Jacob Wolff, it consisted of a manor, mansion house, farmhouse and 500 acres (2.0 km2).

By 1770 Cams Hall was owned by Brigadier General Carnac, the MP for Leominster, who commissioned architect Jacob Leroux to design a new mansion for the estate.

He had close associations with the naval establishment and Emma Hamilton, mistress of Admiral Nelson, is alleged to have been a guest there during his time at Cams Hall.

[1] Delmé was married to Lady Elizabeth Howard, and he commissioned the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint a picture of her and their children, to hang on the walls.

In 1950 (14 July) the decline of Cams Hall began when the structure was heavily damaged by the explosion of ammunition barges at Bedenham pier in Portsmouth Harbour which destroyed the roof and blew out all of the windows, leaving it a ruined shell.

Church had planned to restore it but his death in a plane crash meant that the house continued to decay until it was bought by Strand Harbour Securities and Warings of Portsmouth in 1991.

[3] Since 2000, The Wilky Group has run Cams Hall as one of its Parallel Business Centres, which lease hi-tech workspace within restored historic mansions.