Tempsford Hall
Tempsford Hall is a country house in Tempsford, Bedfordshire.
History
[edit]The original hall was built in 1769 for Sir Gillies Payne; it remained in the Payne family until 1824 when it was sold to Colonel William Stuart.[1] Following a fire in November 1898 the house was rebuilt and completed in 1903. In 1933 Millicent the last of the Stuart family died and the hall and estate passed to a second cousin Kathleen Ann Pole Wynne, who had been born a member of the Stuart family.[1] In 1938 the Hall was leased by Dr Henry Ward Hales who used it as a clinic. He later purchased the freehold in 1946.[1]
During World War II it was used by the Special Operations Executive as an agent reception and pre-flight preparation centre.[2]
In 1964 Hales sold it to the Kier Group construction business.[1] In October 2019, financially troubled Kier announced it was selling its Tempsford Hall headquarters to raise cash from its property assets,[3] and head office functions were transferred to Kier's Manchester office in April 2020.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Millennium Garden". Tempsford Museum and Archives. Archived from the original on 2019-07-10. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ "People's War". BBC. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ Morby, Aaron (25 October 2019). "Kier to sell historic country HQ to pay down debt". Construction Enquirer. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
- ^ "Kier moves north". The Construction Index. 18 April 2020. Retrieved 20 April 2020.