Houghton Grange

Houghton Grange

Talk given to the Huntingdonshire Local History Society by Dr Barry Freeman on Friday 27 April 1984.

Houghton Grange, as designed by James Ransome in 1897.

In 1897 the Home Farm of Houghton Hill estate, comprising a farmhouse and about 38 acres of land, was sold to Harold and Edith Coote. Harold Coote was Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, and was a partner in the well-known local firm of coal merchants, Coote & Warren (suppliers by appointment to the royal household!). The Cootes commissioned James Ransome to design for them a house, to be known as Houghton Grange.

The resulting mansion, planned somewhat on Elizabethan lines, was so sited that it had excellent views over the valley of the Great Ouse. It was to be approached along a 300 yard long avenue of limes. A lodge cottage (the West Lodge) was built at the junction with the road. A second cottage, on the east side, was erected four years later. The driveway itself was made by digging out the soil, packing the trench with coal, replacing the soil and then firing the coal. The surface thus created remained maintenance-free for some fifty years.

Over the next few years the estate was to take in several parcels of land bordering on the river. The eastern and western limits of the estate were marked by the planting of rows of conifers.

In 1920 the house was sold to a Mr H. Perkins, a market gardener. He enthusiastically added to the stocks of trees and plants, many of which survive to this day. The gardens by this time required six gardeners. They were responsible for 2,000 sq. ft. of glass under which were grown grapes, cucumbers, melons, peaches etc., seven acres of plum orchards, three acres of flowers, two acres of mixed plums and apples, espaliered walks, a walled vegetable garden, and strawberry and asparagus beds.

The house was up for sale again in 1932, the price being £7,500. It was purchased by Mrs Gregory. She and her husband were both physicians, he practising in Harley Street. They already owned the neighbouring properties Houghton Hill Farm, Hiam Farm and Wigan Hill Farm. The Gregorys had hoped to develop the Houghton Grange estate as some sort of health hydro or treatment centre. The Cambridge architect A L McMullen produced several designs for this development in 1935. However, all that came to pass was the construction of a squash court and a swimming pool. With the coming of war in 1939 the estate was required as a centre for food production, and the staff of the estate were increased by the allocation of some land girls and, eventually, a number of prisoners of war.

Even with the ending of hostilities the Gregorys did not bother to revise their plans for the treatment centre, and the property, together with the Houghton Hill Farm and Hiam Farm, was put up for sale in 1947.

The eventual purchaser of this 1,000 acre estate was the Veterinary Educational Trust, shortly to change its name to Animal Health Trust. The price paid was £80,000, of which £20,000 represented the value of the original Grange estate plus an adjacent 40 acre field, which also included what is known as the Bird Sanctuary. It was the intention of the Animal Health Trust to use the estate as a centre for scientific research, and two institutions were set up in 1948. These were the Poultry Research Station and the Farm Livestock Research Station, headed by Dr Bob Gordon and Professor William Miller respectively. Because of financial constraints the poultry enterprise developed considerably more rapidly than the farm animal station, and soon much of the land of Houghton Grange had been set aside for rearing various breeds of chicken and turkey.

Houghton Grange, previously in a sad state of repair.

The house itself, from 1948 to 1959, suffered various humiliations. Parts of it were used as flats for the scientists, a library, laboratories etc. It was not until 1959 that it attained something of its former glory, when it became the administrative centre for the Houghton Poultry Research Station, the Animal Health Trust having sold its interests in the research station to the Agricultural Research Council. A further consequence of the change of ownership was that the Farm Livestock Research Station moved to Billericay, in Essex. Whilst the house was generally restored in 1959, it did suffer the further humiliation of becoming attached to a purpose built laboratory wing, and the process was repeated in 1969 when a second western wing was added. The house and the two lodge cottages were listed by the Department of the Environment in 1982 as buildings of architectural interest.

Builders are currently clearing the site. The mansion is to be converted into flats and the grounds developed as upmarket housing.