Pinewood Studios - History

History

Pinewood Studios was built on the estate of Heatherden Hall, which was a large, attractive Victorian house with spectacular grounds. It was purchased by Canadian financier and MP for Chiswick and Brentford, Lt. Col. Grant Morden, who spent a fortune transforming the mansion into a show-piece home, adding refinements such as a huge ballroom, a Turkish bath and an indoor squash court. Due to its seclusion, it was used as a discreet meeting place for high-ranking politicians and diplomats and the agreement to create the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed there.

On Morden's death in 1934, building tycoon Charles Boot bought the land and turned it into a Country Club. The ballroom was converted into a restaurant and many of the bedrooms became furnished suites.

Read more about this topic:  Pinewood Studios

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    There is a history in all men’s lives,
    Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
    The which observed, a man may prophesy,
    With a near aim, of the main chance of things
    As yet not come to life.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)