The estate was bought by the War Office in two lots, in 1911 and 1933, in order to extend the Salisbury Plain Training Area.
An Ordnance Survey map published in 1958 shows the house and outbuildings, with extensive military buildings on the chalk downs immediately to its west.
Richard Colt Hoare is recorded as an owner, and he also mentions the Earl of Godolphin and the Duke of Montrose as residing there.
At that time the estate consisted of "the Capital and elegant Mansion, lawns, plantations, farms and other appendages, and above 1,050 acres (4.2 km2) of land".
Its use as racing stables continued into the 20th century, as it was a training establishment in 1907 when the Tilshead Lodge Estate was auctioned as part of the Erlestoke estate, and as late as 1937 it was being rented by the horse trainer Richmond Chartres Sturdy of Elston House.