Newbold College of Higher Education opened in 1901 as Duncombe Hall College in
Holloway,
North London to train church workers and
ministers. It has undergone a number of name changes. The Newbold name was taken from its
Newbold Revel location to the east of Rugby, Warwickshire, during
World War II. Another wartime Warwickshire location was Packwood Haugh, between Solihull and Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire. In 1945 the college purchased Moor Close, which expanded to the present-day campus. One factor for this choice was its proximity to Oxford and London. The existing campus is located near
Heathrow Airport.
Moor Close Moor Close is a Grade II
listed redbrick
Jacobethan house built in 1881. It was extended and altered c. 1914, with a complete Jacobethan interior, by architect and garden designer
Oliver Hill for financier Charles Birch Crisp, to complement the terraces and gardens which Hill created over 1910–13. These are listed Grade II* in the
National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Extending to the south and east of the house, the grounds contain a number of terraces on different levels, many linked by circular steps. There are courts,
pergolas, staircases,
balustrades and lily pools. Hill also built a stone bridge over a ravine, leading to Sylvia's Garden, named after Crisp's daughter. Moor Close was Hill's first major project, and was influenced by the work of garden designer
Gertrude Jekyll. ==Campus==