Wall Hall

 mansion / manor house / villa, Grade II Listed (UK)

www.wallhall.com/ Wall Hall is a gothic revival mansion with a castellated façade created in the early nineteenth century for George Woodford Thelluson, a prosperous City banker mentioned in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The landscaped grounds reached their prime under John Pierpont Morgan Jr. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan,_Jr. an American banker who bought the hall in 1910. He spent three months each year at the estate, conducting shooting and entertaining parties that included George VI and the late Queen Mother. During the second world war house was lent to American ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy, who used Wall Hall as a weekend retreat. It became a training centre for various European underground activities. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, was rumored to have been imprisoned and interrogated here. In 1943, Hertfordshire Council bought the estate and after the war it became a teacher training college and eventually part of Hatfield Polytechnic, now the University of Hertfordshire. The estate was purchased by developer Octagon in 2001, where they transformed the former university campus into a virtual hamlet. The four year restoration and conversion project has seen Wall Hall divided into seven homes ranging in size from a 1,100 sq ft two bedroom second floor apartment to The Morgan, a baronial style 6,000 sq ft three-storey wing. Period features include grand staircases, a magnificent hammer beam ceiling, a silver vault, ornate cornicing and plasterwork, marble fireplaces, carved panelling and stained-glass windows. In the grounds, the developer has retained and restored the Repton garden architecture, including the original abbey folly and the formal Italian garden with marble gazebo.
media.primelocation.com/SAGR/SANW/SANW_297467/BROCH_01....
www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-164093-wall-hall-th...
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