HALTON HOUSE

Drive along the B4009 from Tring Hill to Wendover and halfway along there are signs to ‘Halton House’. What is it? How does one see it, how many inquisitive people drive down the narrow road, over the vicious sleeping policeman and find that it is Ministry of Defence property, they are not supposed to be there, and just manage to glimpse rather a grand House? Then disappear down the track and wonder.

Well hidden from the road, Halton House is unknown except to a few local people. I have met a lady, who has lived in Wendover for over 20 years and never knew the House was there, Halton House is now the Officers Mess for Royal Air Force Halton, a rather grand Grade 2* listed building. The House was the home of Alfred de Rothschild, a well-known banker during the Victorian era. He was a member of the Rothschild family, whose history goes back to the Jewish Ghetto in Frankfurt and the five sons of Mayer

Amschel Rothschild. One son stayed in Frankfurt and the other four emigrated to cities in Europe to start finance houses. The family had seven country Houses in the Vale of Aylesbury, also having houses in London.

Halton House was newly built, between 1880 and 1884, a party House and a weekend residence for Alfred de Rothschild to entertain his guests for the weekend, in a style now unimaginable. The House was one of the first with electricity and had under floor heating in many of the ground floor rooms. The grilles are very evident when walking around the House. The first party was in January 1884, the description for which filled a whole page of the Bucks Herald for that week. His guests included the Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII in 1901, at the death of his mother Queen Victoria. Edward and Alfred had met at Cambridge and had become firm friends. Other guests would have filled the social pages for the era, aristocrats, politicians, foreign diplomats, both British and European royalty and singers. An example is Nellie Melba, the opera singer; she was a frequent visitor as was Arthur Sullivan from the Gilbert and Sullivan duo. Examples of comments about the House when it was first built included ‘an exaggerated nightmare of gorgeousness and senseless and ill-applied magnificence’, and another ‘I have seldom seen anything more terribly vulgar, outside it is a combination of a French chateau and a gambling house. Inside it is badly planned, gaudily decorated but the hideousness of everything, the showiness, the sense of lavish wealth thrust up your nose, the course mouldings, the heavy gilding always in the wrong place, the colour of the silk hangings! Eye hath not seen nor pen can write the ghastly coarseness of the sight. There are other comments about the House; these two are the most outrageous. As far as I can gather, people vied to receive invitations to the weekend parties and from the ‘Visitors Book’ we can see many names that are frequent visitors.

For these weekend parties there were rooms for up to 25 people, and we know that Alfred’s room is now the VIP suite. The dining room, now the bar, could seat 25. The photograph we have shows the room set up in quiet magnificence, laid with pristine white tablecloths, all china, glass and cutlery with the AR inscribed on them. The tables were decorated with sprays of Orchids, an expensive flower at that time, possibly grown in one of Alfred’s 45 greenhouses.

The main reception rooms are on the ground floor, the entrance hall as you enter is rather plain, close to Alfred’s office (now called the Red Room), however original photographs show a room, with a large desk, the walls covered with expensive paintings.

The original desk probably used by Alfred de Rothschild on which to write his invitations and his Estate Manager also used the room to keep up to date with Alfred’s requirements. The original desk in the room went to Exbury on the sale of the house in 1918; it was sold on at some time and then appeared at Sotheby’s in 2017 and sold for £149,000.

The Entrance Hall leads to the Main Salon, a very large room, almost like a ballroom, however never used as such as far as we know. The photographs we have show the room more as a large drawing room. Full of furniture, chairs, a round sofa in the middle of the room under the chandelier, and small tables, where we believe the guests would gather in the evening before dinner.

Going back to the entrance, on the other side to Alfred’s Office is the Smoking Room, a smallish room, in the popular style of the period. Also called the ‘Alhambra Room’, because of its Moorish decoration. The walls are now nearly bare of this decoration; however the whole ceiling has a design of pineapples and is Gold Leaf. It is believed it took two men six months to decorate the ceiling at a cost of £25,000, at that time. This room is where the gentlemen visitors spent time talking and smoking their large cigars.

Next door to the Smoking Room is the Billiard Room, a substantial room with wood paneling and a parquet floor. The billiard table used to be in the middle of the room and the floor was covered with expensive carpets. There were chairs dotted around for those who would have watched anyone playing.

The Billiard table, now in the Boudoir, is the original table and left in the House when it was sold, it was too large to move. The cues and stands are the originals, refurbished at some point as has been the Billiard table.

Outside the Billiard Room is the grand staircase, the decoration of the stairs includes the five arrows that represent the five brothers who started the banks around Europe. The ribbon around the arrows denotes the closeness and united strength of the family. Alfred’s initials intersperse with the Arrows. The stairs can be seen in the ‘Bridgerton’ series, ‘The World is Not Enough’ and other films and TV programmes. The best view of the staircase in a film (The Queen) is of Helen Mirren as the late Queen walking down the stairs with the Corgis to meet Tony Blair standing at the bottom.

The dining room is now the bar; there are some examples on the ceiling of the original decoration, showing various elements of food, eg, fish, lobsters, and game. The painting on the wall is of ‘Lady Bamfylde’ by Joshua Reynolds. This is a copy of the original which is nine foot high and hung where the bar is now. Alfred left the painting to the National Gallery - it is now in the Tate Gallery store in Elephant and Castle in London. Behind the bar is the Bar Store. The room was the library, a small room with a desk, a cabinet, in which we believe fossils were held, book shelves and at the time a very well stocked library.

Along from the bar, through the Salon is the Boudoir, a small room which was the ladies ‘own’. The fireplace in here is reputed to be French and from one of Marie Antoinette’s houses. The original room had a Gainsborough painting, ‘Mrs Ford’ which is now in the Cincinnati Art Museum, left to the museum in perpetuity, by the purchaser.

Moving further along is the Ante Room which divides the North and South Drawing need or want Halton, and in fact apparently said, that he didn’t like the House. There were discussions between Lionel and various interested government individuals and Halton House and the estate were finally sold to the then War Office in 1918. The sum paid was £112,000.

Rooms, both rather bare now. In Alfred’s day you probably couldn’t move for the amount of furniture in there. In the South drawing Room, by the far window, is a photograph of Alfred sitting in that corner, supposedly his favorite spot in the House.

This is a very short description of Halton House, now the Officers Mess for RAF Halton. A stately home, a reminder of a past era. How did the House become the Officers Mess?

At the beginning of the First World War, Alfred, a very patriotic man, and a friend of Lord Kitchener, and Alfred offered Kitchener the Halton Estate as land where the new soldiers could be trained. The arrangement being, ‘please return the Estate as it now when the war is over’. At the time everyone believed that would be by Christmas 1914. As the war progressed buildings were put up and in 1917 the Royal Flying Corps arrived.

At the end of January 1918, Alfred died. He left Halton House and the whole estate to his nephew, Lionel. Lionel had a house and estate that we now know as Exbury in Hampshire, therefore he didn’t

The contents of the House were either sold, given as instructed in Alfred’s will to friends and relatives or left to Lionel, who took many items to Exbury and his London House. A large number of items were also left to Alfred’s illegitimate daughter Almina, (who had married the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, of Tutankhamun fame). Almina also received Alfred’s London house and its contents.

The House became the Officers Mess, when it is not certain, however an interesting read are the Minutes of the Halton House Mess Committee which start in 1923.

It is believed by many that Halton House has at some point to be returned to the Rothschild family. This is not the case as the whole estate was purchased in 1918. Over the years parts of the original estate have been sold off, the remainder as it is now belongs to the Ministry of Defence. In the archives we have a copy of the original letter that records the receipt of the cheque for £112,000.

What the future holds, we wait and see.