Hursley House

The estate descended in the Heathcote family to the 5th Baronet, whose widow sold it after his death in 1881 to Joseph Baxendale, the owner of the Pickfords logistics and removal company.

He sold it in 1902 to Sir George Cooper whose wife, Mary Emma Smith, an American railways heiress from Chicago,[1] commissioned architect Alexander Marshall Mackenzie to carry out extensive development work in 1902 to create the house that can be seen today.

It was requisitioned instead by the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) to rehouse the Design and Production departments of Vickers Supermarine, which had been bombed out of its original premises in Woolston, Hampshire and found that its initial alternative location at Southampton University College was also the target of bombing.

During its time in the House, Supermarine worked on the development of many aircraft, most famously the Spitfire but also such early jet fighters as the Attacker, Swift and Scimitar.

In 1963 IBM purchased the 100 acres (405,000 m²) of surrounding land and have since erected a large modern office complex employing over 1500 people.