History
The house that became Wardown Park Museum was a farmhouse and country residence in the 1800s. The park itself started out as a private estate owned by Richard How. Richards son, Robert built the first property within the park, called Bramingham Shott, which is the current home to the museum.
In the early 1870s the estate was taken over by local solicitor, Frank Chapman-Scargill, he rebuilt much of the earlier house in 1879 for a total cost of £10,000. Scargill left Luton and the house and property was let to J Forder who renamed the estate Wardown.
By 1903 the current owners, (The Stewart Family, whose famous son, Sir Malcolm Stewart founded the London Brick Company) decided to sell the house and 11-acre (45,000 m2) park, and placed the property up for sale with an asking price of £17,000. The property was not sold, and in 1904 local councillors Asher Hucklesby and Edwin Oakley purchased the property for £16,250, and donated the park to the people of Luton. Hucklesby went on to be Mayor of Luton.
Over the next few years extensive improvements were implemented, many new trees were planted, as well as new footpaths and bridges being constructed. The layout of the park today is very much as it was in this period. A bowling green was built in 1905, reputed to be the first in Luton.
It was Hucklesby’s dream that the house would become a museum that would be 'interesting as well as of an educational nature'. However, the house itself had been neglected over the years and suffered from dry rot. Extensive repairs were needed and Luton council could not immediately afford the cost of repair. The building was left empty for several years until it became a military hospital during the First World War. After the war, rooms were let to council employees with a public tea room opening on the ground floor.
The museum in Wardown Park finally opened in 1930 with the exhibits being moved from the Carnegie library where it had started in 1927. Initially the exhibits were held in just two rooms, but over the years the museum has filled the whole building.
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—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)