On the parkland site were two predecessors: the first of these was built in 1239 as Watership or Durantshide Manor, and was early held variously of Hatfield Manor and the
Bishop of Ely. A second predecessor was built about 1430: whereas in 1413 John Mortimer had held Waterships, it is known that in 1477 Thomas Brockett held both manors. The house was acquired by
John Brocket in the early 1550s, and passed to his son
Sir John Brocket (captain of the personal guard of
Queen Elizabeth) on his death in 1558. The building and park owe much of their appearance today to
Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet, who purchased the estate in 1746 and commissioned Brocket Hall to the designs of the architect
Sir James Paine in around 1760. The next owner was
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who was
Queen Victoria's first
Prime Minister (1835–41). She often visited during this period. His wife,
Lady Caroline Lamb, infamously had an affair with
Lord Byron, causing Lord Melbourne much embarrassment. For one of his birthdays she held a state banquet in the Saloon, at which she had herself served from a large silver tureen, naked. On Lamb's death, the house passed to his sister
Emily, whose second husband was another Prime Minister,
Lord Palmerston. Palmerston died at Brocket Hall in 1865, the last UK prime minister to die in office. On Emily's death, the hall then passed to Emily's grandson by her first marriage,
Francis Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper, though it was his younger brother, Henry (d.1887), who lived at Brocket Hall. In 1893,
George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen, President of the
Bank of Montreal and the first Canadian to be elevated to the
Peerage of the United Kingdom, leased Brocket Hall from the 7th Earl for the remainder of his lifetime. Over the next three years, guests included the Queen's children:
The Prince and Princess of Wales,
The Duke and Duchess of Connaught and the
Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck. In 1897, one year after his first wife died in 1896, Lord Mount Stephen married Georgina Mary (known as Gian) Tufnell, a
Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, who encouraged the match. Gian was a lifelong friend and
confidante of the Duchess's daughter,
Mary of Teck, the wife of
King George V, and the Mount Stephenses regularly entertained the royal couple. Gian preferred life at Brocket Hall to the social life that surrounded their London residence at
Carlton House Terrace. Lady Mount Stephen was a close friend of
Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil, Marchioness of Salisbury, who lived on the neighbouring estate,
Hatfield House. After the death of the 7th Earl Cowper (1905), the underlying future
reversion was left to his niece, but she died only a year after him (1906) and the estate passed to her husband, Admiral
Lord Walter Kerr, who lived at
Melbourne Hall. When the life tenant Lord Mount Stephen died in 1921, Kerr put the estate up for sale, and in 1923 it was purchased by
Sir Charles Nall-Cain, who co-ran the brewing company
Walker Cain Ltd; he was created
Baron Brocket in 1933. His son,
Ronald Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket, was a
Nazi sympathiser; he was interned during the
Second World War, and his property was sequestrated and put to use as a
maternity hospital. In 1996
Charles Nall-Cain, 3rd Baron Brocket (often styled as Charlie Brocket) was convicted of
insurance fraud. ==Location==