Hartham Park
| Hartham Park | |
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The Hartham Park manor house, completed in 1795
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| General information | |
| Type | Manor house |
| Location | Hartham, Wiltshire |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°26′49″N 2°12′05″W / 51.4470°N 2.2013°WCoordinates: 51°26′49″N 2°12′05″W / 51.4470°N 2.2013°W |
| Current tenants | Business park |
| Website | |
| www |
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Hartham Park is a Georgian manor house, located in Hartham near Corsham, Wiltshire, England. Originally designed by James Wyatt, and set today in 50 acres (20 ha), it contains one of three remaining stické tennis courts in the world. The house was redeveloped as a private business park in the late 1990s, although it retains its Georgian facade and look.
Hartham Park is first recorded in the Domesday Book, and was owned from the 15th century by the Goddard family. In 1790, following the death of her husband Commodore Sir William James, Chairman of the East India Company, Lady Anne James (née Goddard) decided to move from Eltham, London to Wiltshire. She commissioned architect James Wyatt to remove the existing farm house and redevelop the property. Completed in 1795, Lady James died before its hand-over. Although her house is at the centre of the current property, it is largely obscured or altered as a result of later developments.
Subsequently leased out, in 1800 it was the birthplace of Sir Alexander Malet, 2nd Baronet.
In 1816, the estate was purchased from the Goddard family trust by American exile Michael Joy, who through his sympathies for the British during the American War of Independence found it impossible to remain in North America. In the 1830s his son Henry Hall Joy undertook a land swap with Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, in which he took ownership of the adjacent Hartham House, which had historically been owned by the Duckett family. In his subsequent redevelopment of the estate, Hall Joy added an ice house to Hartham Park, which subsequently served as an air raid shelter during the Second World War. He also incorporated the gates of Hartham House into the entrance of Hartham park, so that the Duckett family crest still appears on the iron entrance gates. Henry Hall Joy died in 1840.
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