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PUBLIC PLACES History


The area around the Wittington estate has been occupied since the Iron Age; Danesfield Hill Fort, built over 2,000 years ago, is on the estate’s western edge. Numerous Roman coins and artefacts have also been dredged from the adjacent river Thames. According to the house’s first owner, Hudson Ewebank Kearley, there was evidence of a Saxon settlement and the Wittington name - which had many variants down the centuries, such as Wydendon and Whittington - is Saxon in origin. Over the intervening centuries activities such as chalk quarrying were carried out, providing materials for the 13th century Medmenham Abbey, and the Thames was an important freight route. The remains of a flash-lock capstan, unique in England and used to haul barges upriver by Hurley weir, were discovered in the 1970s. It was fully restored in 1999 and today is maintained by SAS. (see separate panel). More modern developments began in


Wittington House


1897 when the aforementioned Hudson Kearley MP, Lord Devonport and later Minister for Food during the Great War, bought the land from Oxford University. He commissioned celebrated architect Sir Reginald Blomfield to design Wittington House in 1897, asking him in 1908 to completely remodel and enlarge the building.


Chalk quarry


In the 35 years following, work in the grounds employed hundreds of local men, particularly important with high unemployment after the Boer Wars. The fame of the gardens spread, so much so that Queen Mary, the present Queen’s grandmother, paid a visit in 1931. In 1934, the Canadian industrialist Garfield Weston bought the site. Branches of the family are based in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom and they are a family of prominent business people with global interests in food and clothing businesses. The family operations began with the founding of a bakery in Toronto,


Ontario by George Weston and in 2018 they were named Ireland’s richest family for the tenth year running with a wealth of €11.42bn.


The main holding company of the British branch of the family is Wittington Investments, with the majority of these shares held in a charitable trust - the Garfield Weston Foundation, with the balance owned by family members. Wittington Investments owns a majority stake in Associated British Foods, which itself owns the discount clothing chain Primark, and 100% of upmarket retailers Fortnum & Mason and Heal & Son. The Salvation Army took the house from 1948 for a peppercorn rent, running an Eventide House for elderly ladies. Over the period of this tenancy, the grounds became overgrown and the house fell into disrepair. However, a new chapter in Wittington’s history began in 1987 when SAS UK arrived with just 11 employees.


SAS bought the land next door in 1997 to support its continued growth and added an additional 34 acres to the estate. Acquired from the Ministry of Defence, it was the former RAF Medmenham base, home to Operation Crossbow, the codename for a vital military operation to locate V1 and V2 rocket bases in northern Europe in World War II. Ammunition and ordnance has been found in this area, including a large casing for a prototype of Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb.


After restoration of the magnificent Rose Garden 118 PC October/November 2019


In 2002, on the Upper Wittington site of the former MOD land, a gleaming energy-efficient 10,000 square metre UK headquarters building was constructed, with a futuristic design centred around a three-storey atrium with dramatic open spaces and eco-friendly features that include grey water recycling. Less than 20 years on, this remarkable building is being totally refurbished to future-proof the company’s development requirements over the coming decades.


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