De Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre - Salisbury Hall

Salisbury Hall

The site has been occupied by a number of large manor houses since the 9th Century. The present house was built around 1668 by the London Banker James Hoare, bringing with it associations with Charles II and Nell Gwynne, who lived in a cottage by the bridge to the Hall. The Hall subsequently passed through various hands, and during the latter part of the 19th century was occupied by a succession of farmers. However, about 1905 Lady Randolph Churchill, as Mrs. Cornwallis West, came here to live. Her son, Winston Churchill, became a regular visitor. During the 1930s Sir Nigel Gresley, of the London and North Eastern Railway, was in residence. He was responsible for the A4 Pacific steam locomotives, one of which, Mallard, still holds the world speed record for steam locomotives of 126.5 mph. Rumour has it that the name came from the ducks in the moat.

In September 1939 the de Havilland Aircraft Company established the Mosquito design team in the Hall, the prototype Mosquito, E0234/W4050, subsequently being built in the adjacent buildings. Nell Gwynne's cottage was the centre of a silk worm farm, which supplied the silk for the Queen's wedding and Coronation robes. After de Havilland left in 1947 the Hall slipped into a derelict condition.

When Walter Goldsmith, a retired army major, purchased Salisbury Hall, he soon came to realise that it had been used by de Havilland during the war. On contacting Bill Baird, then in charge of PR at de Havilland at Hatfield, he discovered that the company had used it as the design centre for the Mosquito, and that Baird had squirrelled the original prototype away in the Fiddlebridge stores, just off the airfield at Hatfield. Having resisted several calls to burn the aircraft, Baird was delighted to find someone who could offer the old aircraft a home. de Havilland carried out basic restoration work at Hatfield, and Goldsmith accepted the aircraft back at Salisbury Hall in 1959.