Amport House | |
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Located near Amport in Hampshire | |
Amport House
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Coordinates | 51°11′42″N 1°34′34″W / 51.1950°N 1.5761°W |
Type | Manor house, Chaplaincy Centre |
Site information | |
Owner | Ministry of Defence |
Controlled by | Ministry of Defence |
Site history | |
Built | 1857 |
In use | 1939-Present |
Garrison information | |
Garrison |
RAF Maintenance Command Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre |
Amport House, currently the British Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre (AFCC), is a manor house (at grid reference SU296440) in the village of Amport, near Andover, Hampshire. It is now a Grade II listed building.
The current house, which was built in an Elizabethan style, was constructed near the village of Amport in 1857 by John Paulet, 14th Marquess of Winchester and replaced two earlier houses built on the site. The gardens were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and planted by Gertrude Jekyll. During the 1930s the house was owned by Col. Sofer-Whitburn until it was taken over and used as the headquarters of Royal Air Force Maintenance Command during World War II.
The last of the Paulet family to reside at Amport was Henry Paulet, 16th Marquess of Winchester, who died in 1962. Later that year the Royal Air Force Chaplains' School moved from Dowdeswell Court in Dowdeswell to Amport House. The School, which had included a Royal Navy chaplain staff member, became the tri-service Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre in 1996 on the closure of the depot of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department at Bagshot Park. There is also a gatehouse and a pleached avenue of lime trees, believed to be the longest such avenue in the United Kingdom.