Sam Alper - Chilford Hall

Chilford Hall

In 1965, Alper bought a group of old farm buildings in Linton near Cambridge with a view to turning them into a conference, banqueting and cultural centre. The oldest building at Chilford Hall is the Little Barn, built in the early 18th century. The Great Hall is a Grade II listed building dating from 1820 and the house itself dates from 1840 although there has been a farm at the site since Saxon times. Alper added to the property over the years adding an art gallery in 1971 and the Pavilion from 1968 with major alterations made in 1997. The barn complex was distroyed by arsonists in 2012.

In 1972 he planted 18 acres of vineyard which was extended between 1974–76 and he established a winery making a range of English wines using nine different grape varieties. He set up the East Anglian Wine Growers' Association and served as a Board Member of the English Vineyard Association. His wines have won numerous awards and Alper, displaying his usual flair for publicity would regularly promote the wine by taking part in the Great English Wine Rally, driving samples of his wine to the George V Hotel, Paris in his 1930s Phantom II Rolls Royce.

Privately, he was a great opera enthusiast and a collector of modern art and was himself a talented sculptor in stone who appreciated fine architecture. He delighted in incorporating some examples into the buildings at Chilford Hall including some marble pillars from the Long Bar at Waterloo railway station to be found in the wine cellar and the pink marble staircase from the old London Stock Exchange building can be found in the bar in the Great Hall.

His artistic interests also saw Alper bring the Curwen Studio to Chilford Hall, Cambridge in 1989 when he became aware that the studio's lease of Tottenham Court Road, London, was about to expire. The Curwen Press had originally been established in 1863 by the Reverend John Curwen in Plaistow. His grandson Harold transformed the business from being principally a music printers into a fine art printers and lithographers and they established a reputation for excellence that earned them exhibitions with both Tate Gallery and the Royal Academy as well as commissions from noted artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Graham Sutherland. In bringing the studio to Chilford Hall Alper expressed his strong admiration for the arts over many years. Later, he also established the Curwen Print Study Centre, an educational charity permitting people from as young as seven years of age and of all abilities to learn about different forms of printmaking.