Calcot Park, Berkshire, England

Calcot Park is a country house estate, situated between Calcot and Tilehurst, suburbs of the town of Reading, and within the civil parish of Tilehurst. It is north of the Bath Road (now part of the A4).

History

Calcot Park, originally the manor house of Tilehurst manor with a significantly larger estate than at present is thought to have originally been built by the merchant and moneylender, Sir Peter Vanlore (1547–1627). Later, it was the home of the famous 'Berkshire Lady', Frances Kendrick, who married her husband, Benjamin Child, after challenging him to a duel. It is said that when, as a widower, Benjamin sold up to John Blagrave (a descendant of the great mathematician's brother), he changed his mind and to force his departure the lead was removed from the roof. The resulting damage to the house forced Blagrave to build the present house in 1759.

Calcot Park c. 1845 by William Fox Talbot

Benjamin Child's retained the easternmost section when he sold the rest of the Calcot Park estate, as this is where the duel was said to have taken place and here it was that he built for himself a new mansion, the focal point off what became Prospect Park.The Blagrave family for many years kept the ownership of the western part of the estate.

On 24th April 1929 a public meeting was held where it was proposed a new golf course could be build on this part of the estate. After a positive public response to this idea a group of business men met soon after anticipating the estate would cost about
£19,500 and it would require a further £5000 to create the golf course to the design of Harry Colt a famous golf course architect. His big idea being a picturesque lake spanned by the 7th hole. Until 1960 the house was used as the clubhouse for the new golf club.at which time the Golf Club had a new clubhouse built within the grounds with the proceeds of the sale of the house sold to create flats.

Main Reference WIKI Berkshire Information shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License - see Creative Commons Licenses