page_title: Danesfield House
section_title: Present house
hierarchical_section_title: Danesfield House / Present house
caption_attribution_description: Danesfield House
context_page_description: Danesfield House in Medmenham, near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills is a former country house now used as a hotel and spa. The house stands on a plateau which shelves steeply down to the River Thames to the south.
context_section_description: A new house in a Neo-Tudor style was built from 1899–1901, designed by architect W. H. Romaine-Walker. This building was constructed in the northwestern quarter of the prehistoric ramparts, with the western ramparts being levelled to improve access. When the new building was completed, the old house and chapel were demolished. Shortly after it was completed, the estate was sold by Husdon to a property speculator, Mr Hossack, and then to Mrs Arthur Hornby Lewis.
  Mrs Hornby Lewis died in 1930 and left the estate on trust for her 16-year-old grand niece Elizabeth Whitelaw. The trustees sold the estate in 1938 before she took possession. It was bought and renovated by Stanley Garton, but the Second World War intervened, and it became the temporary home of 80 boys from Colet Court prep school, evacuated from Hammersmith.
  The house was requisitioned by the Air Ministry for the RAF to set up a Joint Service Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) Unit and was known as RAF Medmenham.  Danesfield House was to IMINT, what Bletchley Park was to Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). The RAF added many temporary wooden structures, and it was bought by the Air Ministry in 1948 to become the divisional headquarters for No. 90 Group RAF (Signals).  The house was officers' accommodation, with the Grand Banqueting Hall used as the officers' mess.
  The house was sold to the milk processing company Carnation in 1977, to become its corporate headquarters. It became a country house hotel in 1991. It is a Grade II* listed building. The north and west lodges, steps, walls and fountain in the garden are Grade II listed.
caption: Topiary gardens and the south face of the hotel
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