Heckfield Place

A country estate of 438 acres, the heart of Heckfield Place is a Georgian Grade II listed manor house, located in Hampshire, United Kingdom.

She borrowed against the funds left in trust for her infant son Henry, and used some of the money to build herself a new house and amass a small estate.

John Lefevre (1721/2-1790) of a successful Huguenot family of textile dyers, gin distillers and bankers established around Spitalfields and Stratford, East London, bought Heckfield Place in February 1786.

Charles Shaw Lefevre became MP for Newtown (Isle of Wight, 1796–1802) and for Reading (1802–1820), was the Recorder for Basingstoke, and in the 1790s, raised a company of militia in North Hampshire.

Through land exchanges with neighbours (particularly Pitt and afterwards, the Dukes of Wellington), by purchase and through enclosure, Shaw Lefevre and his son greatly enlarged the estate, particularly to the south, until it extended to 2,388 acres.

The younger Charles Shaw Lefevre inherited from his father and entered Parliament as the (Whig) Member for Downton, Isle of Wight, in 1830.

Charles and Emma Shaw Lefevre undertook two further phases of work to the manor house: by 1840 square bay windows had been added to the east and west fronts, and outside, a formal Italianate balustraded terrace had been wrapped around the east and south fronts; by the 1850s, the whole of the south-east corner of the house had been thrown out to create a fine library (a scheme that possibly involved Edward Blore, whose diaries record visits to Heckfield Place in December and January 1846–47[7]).

Sicilian marble columns and fireplaces were added in the public rooms, the cast-iron firebacks displaying the quartered arms of Shaw Lefevre and Whitbread.

Wildsmith became one of the foremost men of his profession, leading the contemporary development of carpet bedding (for which the terrace at Heckfield Place was famous) from over-fussy floral patterns of annuals into looser, hardy, year-round planting.

At Heckfield Place, Wildsmith extended sub-tropical planting around the lower lake; the pinetum flourished in the native heathland soil, and included early sequoiadendron specimens; fifteen men tended the shrubberies; glass frames of every description enabled the unseasonal forcing of produce, for example of strawberries for the table in February; the walled gardens were legendary for fruit – for pears (the favourite fruit of Lord Eversley) and for grapes in particular.

[11] Heckfield Place remained a focus for the wider Shaw Lefevre family until Lord Eversley died, aged 94, on 28 December 1888.

Until the outbreak of war in 1914, life at Heckfield Place continued much as it had, the seasons punctuated by open gardens, shooting days, horse-racing and fox-hunting.

Lord Eversley's erstwhile conservatory was converted to a chapel, with a priest from Douai Abbey leading mass on Sundays, alternately with neighbouring Bramshill House.

The management of the gardens was simplified, it being written of Dorothy that 'If you want to find the lady of the manor in winter she will be in some bush with a billhook; in summer pursuing her little motor mower along the paths.

Heckfield Place and sixty-seven acres[14] were bought by Patrick Hungerford and Toby Ward in 1981[15] and converted to a training and conference facility, acquired by Racal Electronics the following year.

Racal's customers, particularly military radio users, attended training at Heckfield Place through the 1980s, resulting in an eclectic mix of international guests.

From 2009 the manor house underwent extensive renovation prior to opening in September 2018 as a hotel with restaurants, a spa and screening room.

The 220 acres of pleasure grounds, former site of The Grove, and the 180-acre Home Farm form a consolidated landholding, fringed by its own woodland, and by fishing on the River Whitewater.

With a tagline of 'Calling all Curious Minds,’[17] a programme of varied events, including workshops, screenings and talks, known as The Assembly, is staged at the property.

In the process of achieving biodynamic status at the end of 2020, the farm provides much for the House: from flowers to rotating arable crops and honey.

In 2020 Heckfield Place opened its own micro-dairy, which generates raw milks, cream, butter and yogurts for the House.

The milk from its 38 Guernsey cows is creating cheese with local cheesemaker Village Maid[18] and there are 59 Suffolk as well as Hampshire and Southdown sheep.

Seven new glasshouses each set to different temperatures propagate everything that goes into the cut garden, nurturing lettuces, soft fruits, brassicas, squash and a variety of species of tomatoes, as well as providing for year-round fresh flowers including narcissi, tulips, ranunculi, roses, delphiniums, grasses, berries, and various edible blossoms surrounded by a living hedge of hawthorns, mulberries and blackberries.