page_title: Cassiobury House
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Cassiobury House / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Tennis courts of the Cassiobury Tennis Club in Cassiobury, Watford, UK. Just beyond the line of tall trees at the back of the courts is the former site of Cassiobury House which was demolished in 1927; the site is now occupied by suburban houses.
context_page_description: Cassiobury House was a country house in Cassiobury Park, Watford, England. It was the ancestral seat of the Earls of Essex. Originally a Tudor building, dating from 1546 for Sir Richard Morrison, it was substantially remodelled in the 17th and 19th centuries and ultimately demolished in 1927. The surrounding Cassiobury Park was turned into the main public open space for Watford.
context_section_description: In 1893 the 7th Earl of Essex, George Capell, married an American heiress, Adele Grant, the daughter of the New York steam locomotive magnate, David Beach Grant. The Earl's wealth was, by the standards of the day, not especially great, and it was Adele's money that supported the estate in the early years of the 20th century. The parties and entertainments at Cassiobury House continued into the new century: in 1902 it was visited by the young Winston Churchill and King Edward VII. But at about this time the Essex family planned to let the house and live in London. The upkeep was becoming increasingly expensive. In 1909, 184 acres (0.74 km²) of parkland were sold, most to Watford Borough Council for housing and the public park.
  George Capell died in 1916 aged 59, after being knocked down by a taxi. The death of the 7th Earl of Essex set in motion events that were to bring about the demise of Cassiobury House and change the town of Watford. Death duties, a form of taxation introduced in 1894 by the Liberal Government, was placing an increasing financial burden on landed gentry at this time and was responsible for the breaking up of many large estates across Britain.  The considerable death duties resulting from the 7th Earl's death affected the family fortunes, and after six years, his widow and their son, the 8th Earl, decided to put Cassiobury House and its assets on the market. On Thursday 8 June 1922, at 2.30 p.m. at 20 Hanover Square, "By direction of the Right Honourable Adèle, Countess Dowager of Essex", "Cassiobury Park estate including the historical family mansion, Little Cassiobury, and the West Herts Golf Links, embracing in all an Area of about 870 acres (3.5 km²)" was auctioned by Humbert & Flint, in conjunction with Knight, Frank & Rutley.
  A large sale of the contents was held over a period of ten days in June 1922. The lavish interior fixtures and fittings, furniture and fine art collection were split up and sold to private collectors and museums around the world, mainly in the United States (see below). Adele did not, however, find a buyer for Cassiobury House; in July 1922 she died of a heart attack in her bath, and the house remained unoccupied for a further five years. Finally, in 1927 it was demolished and sold for its materials. Posters advertised "To lovers of the antique, architects, builders, etc., 300 tons of old oak: 100 very fine old oak beams and 10,000 Tudor period bricks". Much of the building material salvaged from the house, along with some interior fittings, were used to build a new house of the same name in Bedford, New York.
  The expansion of London's railways played a significant part in the demise of Cassiobury House. The incursion of the Metropolitan Railway into Hertfordshire reached Watford in 1926 with the opening of Watford tube station and the Metro-land building programme was at its peak. Developers such as William King & Co and Charles Brightman acquired valuable land around Cassiobury to lay out new streets and build new houses in the vicinity of the new station. The former site of Cassiobury House was eventually built over by a suburban housing development. In 1930, more land for the public park was purchased by Watford Borough Council. A set of grand castellated Tudor-style gates survived at the Rickmansworth Road entrance to the park for several decades, but were finally demolished in 1970 by Watford Borough Council to allow road widening along the A412 road.
caption: A 2009 view of the former site of Cassiobury House, just behind the Cassiobury Tennis Club
exif: {}