High Elms

Garston Manor
Location within Hertfordshire
General information
Type	Country House
Architectural style	Georgian
Location	Garston, Hertfordshire
Country	England
Coordinates	51°42′07″N 0°23′37″W / 51.701961°N 0.393687°W / 51.701961; -0.393687
Website
http://www.highelmsmanor.com

High Elms Manor is a grade II listedGeorgian country house located near Garston in Hertfordshire, England. It was built in around 1812, and was originally known as "High Elms", but from the 1890s to 2010 it was called Garston Manor.

In the post World War II years the house was a rehabilitation centre, but it later fell derelict. In the 1990s an American named Sheila O'Neill bought and restored it and used it as a Montessori School.

Augustus Cavendish Bradshaw was the originator of High Elms. He appears to have purchased the Estate in the early 1800s and either built High Elms or made very substantial alterations to a small existing building. He and his wife Mary Ann were a very notable couple at this time.

Augustus was born in 1768. His father was Sir Henry Cavendish of Doveridge Hall in Derbyshire and his mother was Sarah Bradshaw who later became Baroness Waterpark. He was educated at Cambridge University.

In 1796 he married Mary Ann (sometimes written Marianne) Jeffreys who was the daughter of James St John Jeffreys of Blarney Castle in Ireland. Mary Ann had previously been married to George Frederick Nugent, the Earl of Westmeath and she became the Countess of Westmeath. In 1796 in a sensational court case she divorced Nugent and soon after married Augustus.

Mary Ann had considerable literary talent and wrote two novels. The first was called “Maria Countess of D’Alva” which she wrote 1808 and is set at the time of the Spanish Armada in the 16th Century. The second novel written in 1810, was called “Ferdinand and Ordella: A Russian Story” and was at the time of Peter the Great. Both novels were written during the period that the couple lived at High Elms. In 1806, Sir Thomas Lawrence painted the portraits of both Mary Ann and Augustus. and Mary Ann’s portrait is shown on the left.

Augustus became a Member of Parliament in 1805 and continued in this position until 1817. When he completed his Parliamentary career he put High Elms on the market. The advertisement in “The Times” in 1817 read as follows and is shown on the right.

John Ryley bought High Elms soon after this and he and his wife Charlotte remained there until he died in 1845.

John Ryley was born in 1786. In 1806 he married Charlotte Catherine Coxe who was the daughter of General Coxe of Cavendish Square. He worked for some years in the Bengal Civil service and after that was a Magistrate for Hertfordshire for thirty years.