page_title: Berkhamsted Place
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Berkhamsted Place / Decline
caption_attribution_description: English: The entrance to the drive of the former Elizabethan mansion, Berkhamsted Place. Now demolished, the site is occupied by a number of private cottages and a farm. Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, UK.
context_page_description: Berkhamsted Place was an English country house which was erected sometime around 1580 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. It was built by Sir Edward Carey, the keeper of the Jewels to Queen Elizabeth I from stones removed from Berkhamsted Castle. Several notable residents of Berkhamsted lived in the house and over the years its owners welcomed guests such as King Charles I and William Gladstone.
  The house was one of two Elizabethan mansions in the town, the other being Egerton House on the High Street which was demolished in 1937. Berkhamsted Place survived fire and renovation for over 380 years before it became derelict and was demolished in 1967.
context_section_description: Berkhamsted Place served well over the centuries as an English country house; at the time of the Second World War the house had nine bedrooms, three bathrooms and five upstairs staff bedrooms. By the 1950s, the cost of running and maintaining a fully staffed great house became prohibitive, and like many other staffed residences, the property was sold off to be converted into flats in the 1950s. The surviving 17th-Century wing of the house became the studio of the renowned sculptor Reg Butler, whose 1953 work Unknown Political Prisoner won the Grand Prize in a competition held by the London Institute of Contemporary Arts.
  By 1963 the house had become unoccupied and fell into dereliction and was finally demolished in 1967. Today, the site is occupied by a number of private cottages and a farm.
caption: Berkhamsted Place at it appears today
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