History
The house was started in 1546 by Sir Richard Morrison. On the marriage of his granddaughter it passed into the ownership of the Capel family, later Earls of Essex. It was demolished in 1927. Carvings from the staircase are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The stables remain and were converted into a retirement home. Part of the grounds, but not the site of the house, now form the public Cassiobury Park.
The dower house of the estate "Little Cassiobury" still exists. Having been designed by Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham (the first woman architect), and built in 1670 it is listed as "grade II*" and "at risk" by English Heritage. Under the supervision of the Portmeirion architect Clough Williams-Ellis there were renovations and extensions to the house in 1937-38. Soon after that Hertfordshire County Council bought Little Cassiobury in 1939 under a compulsory purchase order. They used part of its land to build Watford College, and they continued to use the house as an education office for most of the 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Cassiobury House
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)