Digswell House

Digswell House is a Grade II listed Mansion in Hertfordshire, erected c. 1805–07 by Samuel Wyatt for the Honourable Edward Spencer Cowper, who lived there for some years.

[2] The current house was erected a little eastward of the site on which its predecessor had stood and was built as a commodious country gentleman's home, in an architectural style that can best be described as neoclassical.

The medieval manor house was purchased in 1785 by George Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper and as it was in poor condition was then demolished in 1805 to make way for new mansion.

The house was occupied by Henry Pearse Esquire a West India Merchant with his wife Mary and daughters Mary Louisa, Julia Charlotte, Alice Jane and sons Cosmo Brice and Ernest Charles and a full house of staff are shown in the 1851 census.

Phoebe was his niece, the elder daughter of Dunbar's sister Justina and her husband, Poplar surgeon Christopher Tatham.

A batch of Australian officers will be leaving Digswell House next week for Australia, two of whom (shot through the stomach) have some way yet to go for recovery.

Notable guests have included Mahatma Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw, Paul Robeson, Lord Beaverbrook and Hugh Gaitskell and other leading politicians and intellectuals of the time.

It remained a retreat for artists until 1985 when Digswell House was sold and turned into a collection of private dwellings.