Greenlands
Coordinates: 51°33′47″N 0°52′57″W / 51.5631°N 0.8825°W
Greenlands is a country house situated by the River Thames in Buckinghamshire, just outside Henley-on-Thames. Built in the nineteenth century, it now forms the core of Greenlands Campus of the University of Reading, and is used by their Henley Business School as the base for its MBA and corporate learning offerings. It has been a Grade II* Listed Building since 1992.
The present building was built on the site of a previous house which was owned in the seventeenth century by the D’Oyley family, descendants of the Norman Robert D'Oyly. In the early nineteenth century, the land was owned by Thomas Darby-Coventry and a house called Greenland Lodge was built.
The next owner, Edward Marjoribanks a senior partner in Coutts Banks, bought the house in 1852, enlarged it and it was sold in 1868 on his death. It was bought by William Henry Smith, son of the founder of W H Smith. He further extended the building, though its appearance received a cool reception from Jerome K. Jerome who joked in Three Men in a Boat that it was ‘the rather uninteresting-looking river residence of my newsagent.’ On Smith’s death, his family was ennobled with the title of Viscount Hambleden. Greenlands remained their home until immediately after the Second World War.
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