Situated in the timeless beauty of the Exmoor National Park, and built over a century ago by an eccentric German count, the house has a colourful history and has seen many changes over the years.

 

Croydon Hall

1000 years of history

Although the earliest written record referring to Croydon Hall is from 1221, it is reported to have been a farmstead, dating from pre-Norman Conquest times, and was held by the Benniworth family. The barn (Rinzai) and the remains of the farmyard buildings around the present relief  over-flow car park, could date back to this time. The large window on the west-side of the barn is where the barn gates would have been, and a cart track leads directly down the hill to this window. The outhouses around the car ­park could have been stalls or pig sties. The present annexe, which dates from the time when Croydon Hall was a school, was built on the foundations of some of the original farm buildings.

When Cleeve Abbey was founded by the Cistercian monks in 1198, the Croydon estate was taken over as an addition to the abbey lands, and was run as one of the abbey's five granges. These granges, dotted in the hills surrounding the abbey, were large farms worked by lay brothers supervised by monks. As they were not ordained, lay­ brothers unlike the monks had no priestly duties. However, they also had to take the monks' vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. This means that 700 years ago there was a spiritual community living and working at the present Croydon Hall.

During the summer months, the lay brothers who lived at the grange, worked in the fields and gardens, growing the produce that was consumed at the abbey, or sold to fill the abbey's coffers. The walls surrounding the property, and the ancient archway leading from the front garden to the car-park area beside the annexe, could date from this period. It was built to connect the living quarters with the farmyard.

Also the walled vegetable and fruit gardens on the other side of the driveway could have been created by the abbey monks, who knew to take advantage of the sunny south-facing slope. Leading up to the well area from the stream are some very worn stone steps that most probably were trodden daily by the lay brothers as they fetched their water. The bricked-over well on the hummock, which is mentioned in the Cleeve Abbey records as being 90 foot deep, may have been built during the time of the grange.

Recruitment of eager lay brothers went well during the 13th and 14th centuries, but by the beginning of the 15th century idealism for this hard life was waning. The abbey, which had been mismanaged by a number of self-indulging abbots, was seeing hard times and could not afford to continue running all five of its granges.

Croydon Grange was leased in 1517 to George Prowse, his wife and his four children for a rent of £4.17s a year. The Prowses also had to promise to provide an annual dinner and supper for the abbot and twenty of his men.

After the dissolution of Cleeve Abbey by Henry VIII in 1536, Croydon grange, along with the other abbey lands and buildings, became crown property. It continued however to be leased to the Prowse family. There followed a period in which the Croydon estate was a feudal farm. The high archway, now covered with Virginia creeper could date from this time. There is a similar archway leading into the walled gardens on the other side of the driveway. They are built high so that carts laden with hay and other produce can pass beneath them. The very old wall buttressing the steep side of the hill behind the present kitchen, and the walls round the remains of the farm- yard may go back to grange times.

In 1600 the leasehold was converted to a freehold. The owners, as far as we know still the Prowses, seem to have prospered and their social status had certainly risen with the acquisition of the freehold. Their style was that of landed gentry and on 17th century maps their home is now marked as Croydon Hall. The farmhouse they lived in, which stood on the site of the present house, could have been made of the large square blocks of grey stone that we now find everywhere in the garden.

The planting of the trees that give beauty and form to the view over the open countryside at the back, could have occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries when landscaping the countryside came into fashion.

In the wall on the front of the house is a plaque with an emblematic representation of Justitia. This could imply that the house was once used by a magistrate. The style of the plaque suggests that its date is 17th or 18th century. Perhaps when the house was rebuilt in the 19th century the plaque was replaced in the wall. The presence of this plaque suggests that a magistrate's court was held in the house, and the oak tree known as Felon's Oak at the end of the drive also supports this theory. The original ancient oak, on which they were hung, blew down in a storm some years ago, but a new tree has been planted in its place.

Felon’s Oak, however, is a corruption of an older place name, “Fellowe’s Oak”; hence suggestions that this might once have been a place of execution are unfounded, says another theory. It is quite likely that it received the name “Fellowe’s Oak” because it is a place where people from different parishes would meet at the crossroads there. Three parish borders meet around the area of Felon’s Oak and one runs along the road to the Dragon House Inn on the A39.

(This is taken from various sources held in the Somerset County Records Office, Taunton)

The exact date when the present house was built and who built it, is not known. It may be that in the second part of the nineteenth century, the original farmhouse was found to be too primitive, being certainly cold, damp and draughty. So the owners at that time decided to pull it down and build a "modern" house instead, with all the Victorian mod cons!

An old photo, which could have been taken in the 1880's or 90's when the house was put on the market, shows the rebuilt house in Victorian style, with an outbuilding on the south side, which could have been part of the original medieval building. Perhaps it was the kitchen area that had been kept at first. As seen on the photo, this edifice is built of large stone blocks, certainly the building material of the original house. A lot of these blocks were used to build new garden walls and to fortify old ones after its demolition.

As the photo also shows, the gardens have not been shaped yet, and there are so few trees behind the house that the hills and the cottage in the lane above, which is still there, can be seen.

An ordinance survey map of 1891 shows the house with an extension to the south (the outbuilding). It is without the bays at the back and the porch in the front. The barn is also clearly shown and also the farm buildings which were later demolished.

The house was put up for auction in 1886 and withdrawn when it failed to reach asking price. In 1892 it was on the market again. Finally it was bought by a Mr Cyril Tubbs who set about to improve it. We are told that he built a club-house near the main gate for the use of estate workers. This house is no longer there.

In 1907 the estate was sold to Count Conrad von Hochberg. The count was a cousin of the Kaiser and a member of the Royal house of Pless. He created a good impression with his good nature, and generosity. This German aristocrat made many improvements to the house and garden, including laying what has been called the best sewage system in the West. The house was also lit throughout with electricity powered by a private generator. It was probably he, if not Mr Tubbs, who demolished the ancient outbuilding to the south, adding the south wing and balancing it with a new wing on the north side. Possibly the kitchen area was then changed to this side of the house, being more convenient for tradesmen's deliveries, and the extension, which is now BodyDharma, the leisure wing, was built. The bays at the back of the house, the dormer windows in the roof, and the porch could also have been constructed at this time, or by the next owner, Captain Bridges.

This German count, who was an enthusiastic gardener, created the formal Italian garden, which was not yet built at the time when the photo from the end of the 19th century was taken. The Italian garden feels older than its mere hundred years because the ancient stones left over from the demolished part of the old house could have been used to build its walls. He also laid herbacious borders along the paved path on the lower lawn, which can be seen in photos from the 1920's and 1930's.

The lion's head fountain in the wall beyond the kitchen and the sunken garden with the box hedges at the front of the house were probably also created by the Count.

The blue mosaic in the water courses and small pond at the side of the house certainly dates from the beginning of the 20th century, the time of his occupation. There used to be a statue of a boy water-carrier on the pedestal in the lily pond. The grassy terrace in front of the bay windows with the sundial may have already been there but the Count could have levelled the lower lawns.

The clubhouse remained a popular social centre in his time for the workers on the estate, with regular weekly dances being held, which we are told the Count rarely missed. He had, however, pious plans to turn it into a chapel but was prevented from carrying this out by the events of 1914.

This elegant period in the life of Croydon Hall came abruptly to an end with the outbreak of the First World War. The Count was forced to leave the house in which he had invested so much, and which he must have loved dearly. It is reported that he had tears in his eyes as he departed for the last time down the lane.

There seemed to be all kinds of rumours around the Count's sudden departure. Some stories circulating emphatically stated that he was a spy, some others said that he left to join the armed forces in Germany. However all these rumours were unfounded, fuelled only by the war.

He is said to have given a last (farewell) party to his friends on the 24th of July 1914. (He left on the 28th). He may not have said goodbye to his friends but he did to his flowers. He went around gently touching his English roses, here and there stopping to inhale their scent or to snip off a dead bud.

However, he made one personal farewell. That was to the Rector of Old Cleeve, whom he had told that he was volunteering for service in Germany in the Red Cross. After the war ended, and things settled, no evidence was found that the Count was ever a spy for the Kaiser!

When Hochberg died, he was buried in a Berlin cemetery.  His funeral service was that of the Church of England, only English hymns were sung and a sermon in English was preached. This showed his true love for the country that he made his for seven years.

When after the war the property was released, it was bought by Captain Bridges who was related to the Luttrells of Dunster and who had made a lot of money as a sheep farmer in Australia. He lived here some twenty years.

The land on the other side of the drive still belonged to Croydon Hall at this period, and in what was the orchard, Captain Bridges built a fine tennis court. It is said that he had connections to Wimbledon tennis players, and his tennis friends would come down at weekends for tennis house parties. The gate-house could have been built at this time as the entrance to the tennis court, and may have been used as a kind of pavilion to serve refreshments.

When the Second World War broke out, the house was taken over by the Council and used to house evacuees. Girls from a school in Kent, known affectionately in the neighbourhood as the "maidens", were boarded here.

After the war the estate was sold again, and probably at this point split up. The house section was taken over from the Nuffield Trust by Bristol City Council and in 1947 was opened as a residential school for girls with special needs. The headmistress who lived and worked here during the fifties and sixties has written a book about her experiences at Croydon Hall called The House of Joy, which can be read in Taunton Library. She enthuses in this book over the beauty of the house and garden, mentioning the great size of the magnolia tree over the front porch, which is still there today.

In July 1996 the school was disbanded and Croydon Hall was put up for sale. It was purchased by a property developer with a view to converting it to flats. However, this was fortunately not to be. A change of usage was not permitted and, after standing empty for over two years, and in a state of great disrepair, it was bought by the present owners who have restored it to its former glories, and added some extra glories never known here before in its 1000 years of history.