History

A TALE OF TWO HOUSES ONCE KNOWN AS HAZELWOOD, HUNTON PARK HISTORY SPANS OVER TWO CENTURIES.

Our story begins in 1810, when the mysteriously wealthy Henry Botham and his wife Lydia purchased 43 acres of Hertfordshire land to build the original Hazelwood House. Looking for a new home in the countryside, we’re not quite sure how Henry made his fortune. Between 1810 and 1838, the Bothams purchased further land surrounding Hazelwood, leaving an estate of 74 acres upon their deaths.

The next occupant, Lord Rokeby, purchased the house from his cousin, a relative of Lydia Botham. Having fought in both Waterloo and the Crimean War, Lord Rokeby retired to spend much of his time at Hazelwood, living there with his daughter Elizabeth after the death of his wife. Before his own death in 1886, Lord Rokeby and Elizabeth improved the property and laid out the grounds.

A series of high-profile owners followed, including Admiral Ralph Cator and the Reverend Henry Stewart Gladstone. The latter made £1000 worth of improvements to the property – approximately £154,000 in today’s money – shortly before a devastating fire gutted Hazelwood House on 8th March 1908. The original building had to be completely demolished.

With an insurance payout of £10,500 (circa £1.6million today), the Reverend Gladstone immediately began again with a second Hazelwood House. Though similar in appearance to the first, it was now sited at a different angle to the spectacular ornamental grounds.

By 1930 the property had been sold to Francis Edwin Fisher, a world expert on breeding Jersey and Guernsey dairy herds. A substantial landowner and successful businessman, Francis travelled extensively with his wife, the explorer and writer Violet Olivia Cressey-Marcks.

The couple were often away from Hazelwood for long periods, never considering it their family home. During their stints away, the house was left empty or tenanted by others. One such tenant was none other than the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.

Not much is known about the war years at Hazelwood, other than that part of the estate was used as an airfield (now known as Leavesden Aerodrome). With Violet’s death soon after the war, the family was faced with a crippling inheritance tax and the property fell into disrepair.

The film industry stepped in to save the day with some much-needed funds for repairs, with The Raging Moon and The Executioner both being made at Hazelwood House in the 1970s. Shortly afterwards, business owner Paul Edwin Hembler purchased the property, changing it’s name to Hunton Park. Many maps and local residents refuse to recognise the new name to this day.

From the late 1970s to the mid 2000s, Hunton Park changed hands no less than four times, being used as a business headquarters, a conference centre and, finally, a hotel. Extensive refurbishment took place in the late 1980s, as well as the early 2000s.