Juniper Hall

This article is about the house in North Downs, Surrey. For the house in the Sydney suburb of Paddington see Juniper Hall, Paddington

Juniper Hall Field Centre

Juniper Hall Field Centre, leased from the National Trust, is a 18th century country house in a quiet wooded valley within the chalk North Downs in Surrey. It is about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from Box Hill and only 40 kilometres (25 mi) from central London. Nearby habitats and environments for study include unimproved chalk grassland, coppiced woodlands, heathland and freshwater sites. Opened as a field centre in 1947, Juniper Hall was one of the original four centres opened by the Field Studies Council following the end of the Second World War.

History

The house was originally a public house called The Royal Oak but was bought by Sir Cecil Bisshopp and occupied by him while he was having neighbouring Juniper Hill built. He died in 1779 before Juniper Hill was completed. David Jenkinson (a wealthy “lottery owner”) bought Juniper Hall and built Juniper Hill; the ing his tenure, in 1780, by Benjamin Elliott. Also in 1780, according to the Victoria County History of Surrey, the skeletons of two Anglo-Saxons "in full war apparel" were found while the house was being extended.

The house was leased by Jenkinson to a group of French emigres from 1792-1793 which included Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Louis, comte de Narbonne-Lara and General Alexandre D'Arblay. It was General D'Arblay that met Fanny Burney in the Templeton Room of Juniper Hall and later married her in the village church in Mickleham. In 1800 the house was sold together with about 50 acres (200,000 m²) of freehold land to Thomas Broadwood, the son of John Broadwood and a member of the piano manufacturing family Broadwood and Sons.

The last private owners of the house were the MacAndrew family who had major building works carried out from 1882–1885, which resulted in the building having its present form. Much of the earlier layout is now hidden, but the main office (formerly the morning room) and the Templeton room are little altered.

During World War II the house was occupied by the Canadian army in the build up to the Normandy landings, and in 1945 it was sold by Miss MacAndrew to the National Trust; it forms part of the Trust's Box Hill Estate.

External links

• Juniper Hall Field Centre
• Map sources for Juniper Hall