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The
stone for the external walls came from quarries at Little Casterton near
Stamford, and that for sills, copings, carvings and other finishes from
Ketton. This house demonstrates the earliest known example of 'cavity
wall insulation', being built double throughout. There was a central heating
system 'Mr Price's Apparatus', gas lighting and a service or butler's
lift.
The
massive oak timbers came from the forest of Arden. And each of the risers
were intricately carved with fruits and flowers, each one unique.
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A Brief History of
Overstone
Originally Overstone
Hall, the estate was acquired in 1832 by Lewis Loyd for the princely sum
of £117,000. On his death in 1858 it passed to his son, Samuel Jones
Loyd, by then Lord Overstone, who was ennobled for his services to banking
and government finance.
Lady Overstone persuaded her husband that a much grander country seat
was more in keeping with their status and the new Overstone House was
built. It was designed by William Milford Teulon and according to The
Builder of 1862, was "a mixture of Elizabethan and Renaissance features".
Other descriptions insisted that the inspiration was Italianate. Both
Pevsner and Girouard were disparaging: "defeats description…gross
display of many styles" and "drearily asymmetrical". In
any case, Lord Overstone, noted for his artistic taste, hated the House
and refused to live in it after it was built, preferring to stay with
his daughter at Lockinge in Berkshire.
Harriet Sarah Loyd, who later became Lady Wantage, inherited the estate
in 1883. She and her husband used regularly to stay there during the winter
hunting season until his death in 1901. It was then leased successively
to a Field Marshall, Lord Grenville, and to the Australian shipping magnate
Malcolm McEacharn and his wife. The latter regularly entertained in lavish
style, the only ones really to have used it in the manner for which it
was designed. McEacharn later moved to Cannes, where he died in 1917.
On the death of Lady Wantage, the farms and many of the tenanted cottages
were sold to the farmers and occupants, but the Mansion plus 70 acres
went for £9000 to Sir Philip Stott, the architect. He donated the
use of the House and grounds to the Conservative and Unionist Party for
use as a college in 1923. He condemned the scheme in 1928 as 'an abject
failure' and sold the property to the Charlotte Masons Schools Company
in July 1929 for conversion to a girls' Public School under the auspices
of Henrietta Franklin, daughter of another eminent Victorian Banker, Samuel
Montagu. The School occupied the Main House, Carriage block and stables
and farm buildings for fifty years until July 1979 when the financial
imperatives of maintaining a crumbling Victorian estate became too much.
The estate was sold as a single lot by tender to speculators for £701.000,
who later sold the House and 70 acres to the New Testament Church of God
for £100 000 in 1980.
On April 16th 2001, a fire was started in one of the upper rooms, probably
the dormitory best known to old girls as 'Gallery', situated at the top
of a fire escape on the eastern side of the building. Approximately 60%
of the building was gutted within 12 hours, destroying all of the best-loved
features of the House, including its truly extraordinary, breathtaking
wooden staircase and magnificent library, along with the elegant parquet
flooring which graced the public rooms and corridors.
Regular updates, the 'Project Phoenix' newsletters, will be added to the
website so you can keep in touch with developments.
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