Mells Park

[1] Future Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and his wife Margot spent their honeymoon at Mells Park in 1894, as guests of Sir John Horner and his wife Lady Frances Horner,[5] the daughter of Liberal MP and art patron William Graham.

[11] However, Reginald McKenna, the chairman of Midland Bank, and formerly Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Asquith, was married to Pamela Jekyll, the niece of Frances Horner.

[12] In 1924, the Horners agreed to let Mells Park to them for a nominal rent, on the understanding that the McKennas would rebuild the house.

He built a two-storey, hip-roofed house in Bath stone, on the outline of the previous building,[3] and joined it onto the surviving arcaded service court.

[14] The McKennas had already left Mells Park, for Halnaker, Sussex, where they commissioned Lutyens to build another country house.

[16] Mells Park was later owned by the South African mining company Consolidated Gold Fields.

The talks, which lasted from 1987 till the time of Nelson Mandela's release in 1990, were depicted in the 2009 film Endgame.