From King Henry VIII to American motor tycoon Henry Ford, Boreham House has an incredible story to tell
Boreham House near Chelmsford was originally part of the New Hall estate. When the widow of Christopher Monck, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish the Duchess of Albemarle, sold part of the estate to Benjamin Hoare (son of the Fleet Street banker Richard Hoare) in 1713, the agreement was that she could continue living at New Hall until her death. Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, was an extremely wealthy widow – her husband, the Duke of Albemarle, having made a fortune in Jamaica. She went on to marry the Duke of Montagu who dressed up as a Chinese emperor to secure her hand, such was her desire to marry into royalty!
Lady Elizabeth never had any surviving children with either husband (her son with the Duke of Albermale sadly died soon after he was born), hence on her death the Montagu family took control of her New Hall estate. Tired of waiting to rebuild New Hall (it was at this stage in dire repair) Benjamin Hoare decided to construct a new house for himself and his family, which was Boreham House.
Boreham House was designed by the Scottish architect James Gibbs who was responsible for the designs of the celebrated London churches St Mary-le-Strand and St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. Gibbs spent time in Italy and was influenced by the neoclassical movement. The actual builder of Boreham House was another architect named Edward Shepherd who built Shepherd’s Market in Mayfair.
Neighbouring New Hall, or Palace of Beaulieu as it was known in the medieval era, was owned by King Henry VIII from 1517-1547. Henry fell in love with the family home of his second wife Anne Boleyn, naming it ‘beautiful place’ in French once he had rebuilt it at an eye-watering cost of £17,000.
Before New Hall was sold by the Hoares in 1735 to John Olmius, First Baron Waltham, the staircase and other marble furnishings were taken and used to furnish Boreham House! The construction of Boreham House started in 1728 and was completed five years later. The house was approached by twin drives flanked by a canal in the middle. When Benjamin Hoare died in 1750, the ownership of Boreham House was transferred to his elder brother, Richard, who extensively landscaped the park.
Richard Hoare commissioned the building of a pleasure garden and a lake. On his death, his son Henry Benjamin inherited Boreham House. When Henry passed away, leaving two daughters, Boreham House was not inherited by them but by a second cousin, also called Richard. Richard became a Baronet in 1786, after which point Sir Richard rented Boreham House to Sir Elija Impey, a British judge. In 1789, Sir Richard sold Boreham House to William Walford who lived there until 1797.
The next owner was Sir John Tyrell, a local Justice of the Peace (a lay magistrate appointed to hear minor cases and grant licences in the locality) whose descendants lived at the house right up until 1930. In 1812, Sir John commissioned the famous architect Sir Thomas Hopper to add carriage arches to the wings at Boreham House. Sir John and his son, also called John, planted elm trees and laid the farmland to pasture around the house. Sir John Tyrell, the second Baronet, was a Conservative member of parliament for Essex. On his death in 1877, he left Boreham House to his grandson Lieutenant Tufnell-Tyrell, sheriff of Essex.
Around 1900, Mrs Tufnell-Tyrell expanded the lake designed by Richard Woods two centuries prior, as well as adding a rock walk and wild garden to the pleasure gardens. In 1914, Country Life magazine described the elm avenues as ‘probably some of the best elm avenues in the country.’ Sadly, during the 1960s these all succumbed to Dutch elm disease and have since been replaced by flowering cherry trees, roses and mixed beds and shrubs. During the ’60s and ’70s, more than 20 million elm trees died as a result of the disease, largely and sadly obliterating the elm from the traditional English landscape.
In 1930, the 3,000-acre estate was purchased by Henry Ford of the automobile dynasty. Ford was moved when he witnessed the poor farming conditions and infrastructure whilst watching a passion play at Easter in the English countryside. Ford went on to found Fordson Estates Limited to demonstrate that impoverished farming conditions and agriculture could be improved. Boreham House and 32 acres was used to establish the Henry Ford Institute of Agricultural Engineering.
In 1952, the house and land were transferred to the Ford Motor Company before finally becoming a training centre and college for Ford Tractor Operations. During the 1970s, much of the land was sold off by Ford and then the house was bought in 1995 by Mr V Adams.
Grade I listed Boreham House remains in private hands, and since 2008 has been run as a stunning wedding and events venue. It is now owned by entrepreneur Teresa Ward, and since it was sold last century, it has been significantly updated and restored to its former glory.
