The lodge is first mentioned in 1754, when it was a one-roomed cottage occupied by a
molecatcher. He was employed to eradicate
molehills that were impeding the sport of deer
hunting. The cottage was enlarged to become a house with four principal rooms and was renamed
Hill Lodge. to form the entire Georgian wing and part of the north wing. She died, aged 93, at Pembroke Lodge in 1831. After the Countess of Pembroke's death the Lodge was occupied by
William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll. then Prime Minister, who conducted much government business there and entertained Queen Victoria, foreign royalty, aristocrats, writers (
Dickens,
Thackeray,
Longfellow,
Tennyson) and other notable people of the time, including
Garibaldi. Lord John was much taken with the Lodge – "an asset that could hardly be equalled, certainly not surpassed in England". Earl Russell (as he had become) died there on 28 May 1878; Fanny, his second wife, in 1898. Their daughter
Lady Agatha Russell left the inscribed memorial stone that stands in the rose garden: Lord John Russell's grandson,
Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, widely quoted source of popular witticisms and mathematician, grew up there between 1876 and 1894. At Pembroke Lodge, he wrote, "I grew accustomed to wide horizons and to an unimpeded view of the sunset". From 1903, until her death there in February 1929, Pembroke Lodge was tenanted by
Georgina, Dowager Countess of Dudley, a close friend of
Queen Alexandra. There is a headstone in Pembroke Lodge's gardens to the grave of her dog, Boy, who died in 1907. From 1929 to 1938, John Scott Oliver, a wealthy
industrialist, lived at Pembroke Lodge. During
World War II, the
GHQ Liaison Regiment (also known as Phantom) established its regimental headquarters nearby at The Richmond Hill Hotel, with its base (including the
officers' mess and
billet) at Pembroke Lodge. Some of the members of the squad went on to become
privy councillors,
law lords, judges, MPs, a
commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (
Sir Robert Mark) and actors – including
David Niven, who remarked in a letter, "these were wonderful days which I would not have missed for anything". After World War II, Pembroke Lodge became a government-run tea room. ==Current use==