Construction by Watts The original South Hill Park mansion was built in 1760 for
William Watts and his wife (better known as
Begum Johnson) for his retirement from service as a senior official of the
Bengal Government. The house was originally on two floors, built in the Italian manner, decorated with
stucco, with a front entrance and tower in the
baroque style. The grounds included of common land, which William Watts
enclosed. In return, he built
almshouses on a site opposite
Easthampstead Parish Church about half a mile away. The almshouses were eventually demolished by order of the
Marquess of Downshire in 1826.
Other private owners , Prime Minister and one-time owner of the estate After the death of Watts, the Honourable
Henry Bouverie lived in the house until 1787. He was followed by
Sir Stephen Lushington until 1807, when
George Canning, the celebrated statesman, acquired the property. Canning served under
Foreign Secretary William Pitt, and both Prime Minister and
Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of his death in 1827. Sir
John Soane modified the house during this time. The
Earls of Limerick were the next owners, around the time of the Easthampstead
enclosure award of 1827. ''
Kelly's Post Office Directory shows that Sir James Matheson, who made his fortune trading in China as Jardine, Matheson, was in residence in 1847. In 1853 he sold the estate to Sir William Goodenough Hayter, the Judge Advocate General. In 1868, South Hill Park was referred to in Cassey's Directory'' as "one of the principal mansions in the neighbourhood of Easthampstead". Hayter lived there until his death in 1878, when he drowned in one of the ponds. ''Kelly's Directory'' of 1883 contains a description of South Hill Park, referring to it as the seat of Lady Hayter, "a compact residence of brick faced with cement, standing in a park of in which there are four lakes; the private gardens are very beautiful, being laid out in terraces". Sir William Hayter's son,
Sir Arthur Divett Hayter, later Baron Haversham, rebuilt most of the mansion towards the end of the 19th century, in brick and
Bath stone, incorporating one wing of the original house. Architect
Temple Moore (1856–1920) was commissioned to remodel the house in 1891 and the hard landscaping near the house in 1893. Moore was primarily seen as a church architect and in his previous church commissions were mostly designed in the prevailing
Gothic Revival style but he also included
Baroque details. The Haversham
coat of arms can be seen over the main entrance of the building and is described as "azure and escallop between three bulls' heads couped or". The crest surmounting the coat of arms also shows a bull's head and gold shells. The staff at the time consisted of three footmen, three housemaids, one lady's maid, one housekeeper, one butler, one valet, labourers, gamekeepers, scullery maids and kitchen maids. Lord Haversham died on 10 May 1917. Lady Haversham was still in residence in 1920, when she erected a marble tablet in
Easthampstead Parish Church as a memorial to 62 men who lost their lives in the 1914–18 war. After the death of Lady Haversham in 1929, leaving no direct heir, the house passed into the hands of Major Rickman O.B.E., Lady Haversham's nephew, who was the last person to own and live in it as one house and is best known for shooting himself in the Gun Room in 1940. Due to a fire towards the end of the 19th century, the house is sometimes said to be haunted, especially the modern Studio Theatre area which is located on the site of the nursery. The supposed hauntings are by two children who died when the nursery caught alight.
Further owners During the
Second World War (1939–45) the house was occupied by the
Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, evacuated from Margate. In the late 1940s it was converted into five luxury flats with the main reception being common to all. From 1953, the house was owned by the
BBC, who converted parts into studios and acoustically treated some of the rooms. In 1963, South Hill Park was included in an extension of the
new town designated area of Bracknell and the Bracknell Development Corporation acquired the property. The house was let in 1965 to
Ferranti Limited, who used it as offices and laboratories until early 1972.
Arts Centre In 1972, a proposal to convert the house into an
Arts Centre with an additional theatre was agreed, with the intention that the immediate surrounding gardens, lawns, trees and two lakes would be preserved. The South Hill Park Trust was established and the South Hill Park Arts Centre opened in October 1973. In the grounds of South Hill Park a plaque records the planting of a tree by
William Ewart Gladstone in 1893. By 1980 Alistair Snow developed the visual and live art programme at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell. One of the first Artists in Residence was
Elaine Shemilt, from 1980 to 1982. ==Wilde Theatre and later phases==