page_title: Fawley Court
section_title: 19th century to 1950s
hierarchical_section_title: Fawley Court / History / 19th century to 1950s
context_page_description: Fawley Court is a country house, with large mixed-use grounds standing on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in the English county of Buckinghamshire. Its former deer park extended east into the Henley Park area of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire that abuts it to the south. Following World War II, it was run as Divine Mercy College by the Polish Congregation of Marian Fathers, with its associated library, museum and was one of the cultural centres for the Polish minority in the United Kingdom until its closure and sale in the 2009. It is listed at Grade I for its architecture.
context_section_description: Strickland Freeman, the son of Sambrooke Freeman, wrote works on equitation and veterinary aspects of horsemanship and botany. A very progressive landlord to his agricultural tenants he participated in advancing farming techniques and practices deemed by some revolutionary.
  Strickland Freeman died without a son and heir. This was basically the end of the Freeman line whose history and achievements in a relatively short time frame were indeed meritorious and make fascinating reading The estate passed to William Peere Williams, a distant relative. He again respected William Freeman's will to be able entitled inherit and changed his name to William Peere Williams-Freeman. After extensive and lengthy litigation his heirs eventually put the estate up for auction.
  Fawley Court was sold to the railway contractor Edward Mackenzie in 1853. He retired to Fawley following many successful ventures developing major stages of the railway network in France, following the decline due to ill health and death of his partner and brother, the famous civil engineer and railway builder, William Mackenzie. Edward Mackenzie himself died in 1880, and the house was inherited by his son, William Dalziel Mackenzie, who commissioned the Lancaster architects Paley and Austin to extend the house. This took place in 1883, and consisted of the addition of a wing, containing a study, a billiard room, smoking rooms, and bedrooms, together with terraces around the house.
  It is reputed to have been Kenneth Grahame's inspiration for Toad Hall in his book The Wind in the Willows, written in 1908.
  Fawley Court was requisitioned by the British Army and used in the World War II by special forces for training.  Maurice Roe (b. 4 June 1917 - d.6/5/2014 - military medal 1945) was trained there as a radio operator prior to his insertion into France as described by the obituary on the Telegraph 26 June 2014.  He served both as a commando and as a member of the SOE (special operations executive) and as a Jedburgh.  It was left it in a poor state after the war.
caption: Fawley Court, Buckinghamshire in 1826[12]
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