Goldings estate

Goldings Estate is a large Elizabethan style country house and surrounding land close to Waterford, north of Hertford, Hertfordshire, England.

[3] Robert and Isabel took possession of the estate in 1860, it having been let to Eric Mackay, 7th Lord Reay who lived there with his daughter, Erica, and her husband, Sir Walter Townsend-Farquhar, 2nd Baronet.

A new house for the Estate, first occupied at Easter 1876, was designed by George Devey to be sited on higher ground away from the unhealthy mists in the valley of the River Beane.

Tragedy struck the family in 1902 when both Reginald, aged 45, and his eldest 13-year-old son, Cyril, died of illness within 6 weeks of each other.

Mrs Reginald Abel Smith was reported in The Herts Advertiser of July 1916 to have 16 beds available for injured soldiers at Goldings to convalesce till after the war.

In July 1920, Goldings was put up for auction along with most of Waterford and the surrounding area, with Messrs Knight, Frank and Rutley as the agents.Due to dealings with the late Dr. Thomas Barnardo, the Abel Smith family sold Goldings in 1921 to Dr Barnardo Homes for the sum of £100,000 which had been set off in a loan, that by all accounts was never called in.