Scientology in The United Kingdom - East Grinstead

East Grinstead

The global headquarters of the Scientology movement from 1959 to 1966 was Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, Sussex, a manor house dating from 1733. This is the most famous of the Church's "Advanced Organisations," delivering Operating Thetan training up to level 5. The estate contains a castle built by Scientologists in a medieval style, which opened in 1989. Hubbard developed security checking during this era and ordered that all check sheets should be forwarded to Saint Hill. In 1968, the Scientologists tried unsuccessfully to have their East Grinstead "chapel" officially recognised as a place of religious worship. Rejected by the Registrar General, they took the case to the Court of Appeal and lost in the case known as R v Registrar General ex parte Segerdal. Since the mid-1980s, Saint Hill has been run by a group of young, mostly second-generation Scientologists known as the Commodore's Messenger Organization.

Scientologists own several shops in East Grinstead high street and are active in the Chamber of Commerce. They run an annual medieval fayre at the manor. When Religion, Inc., Stewart Lamont's unfavourable book about Scientology, was released in 1986, all the copies available in East Grinstead were bought up by one man.

Scientologists own a number of other properties around the town. One of its communal houses burnt down in 1991 and since then the Church has been prosecuted by the local council over fire safety. The Independent newspaper acquired documents in 1993 suggesting that the Scientologists had deceived council inspectors, pretending one dormitory housed 50 people when in fact there were 130 permanent residents.

During the 1970s, the Church's intelligence operations were directed from Saint Hill by the "Guardian World Wide", Jane Kember, and her deputy Mo Budlong. These included Operation Snow White (a campaign of burglary, infiltration and wiretapping of US Government offices and the Internal Revenue Service) and various "dirty tricks" against opponents. Kember and Budlong were extradited to the United States, where in November 1980 they were sentenced to two to six years in prison.