~ The History of Hatherop Castle ~

Domesday Book tells us that in 1086 there were two estates at Hatherop totalling about 1000 acres in area and being home to 21 tenants and 26 villeins. The estates obviously thrived as around the year 1212 they were valued by the Crown at about two and a quarter knights' fees meaning that, in case of need, Hatherop would have to equip and provide enough money for two and a quarter knights to fight for the King.

Today we can still see the elegant façade of the country house built by William Blomer, whose father, John, bought the Hatherop Estate in 1552. John Blomer's great granddaughter, Mary, eventually became its heir and when she married Sir John Webb of Canford in Dorset a 300-year ownership of Hatherop by the Webb family began.

In 1862, Ashley Ponsonby put up the estate for sale by auction. It was bought by the Maharajah Duleep Singh, grandfather of a great Indian cricketer of the same name, who soon decided to sell it again. The Prince of Wales, later to become Edward VII, showed an interest in buying it but, because the shooting was not thought to be good enough at Hatherop, instead bought Sandringham!

In 1867, Sir Thomas Bazely, son of a successful cotton industrialist, bought the house and spent some £200,000 on improving the estate, including the planting of 380 acres of trees. In 1900 he transferred the estate to his son Gardner Sebastian Bazely who died in 1911. Gardner Sebastian's widow, Ruth, established at Hatherop one of the early home schools of the Parents National Education Union, a system of education by correspondence.

At the beginning of World War II Hatherop Castle was requisitioned by the Government. Secretly, however, a section of the army living there was allied to the Resistance Movement and dealt with the training and rehabilitation of men and women who were dropped into Nazi-occupied Europe. At the end of August 1945 Hatherop was derequisitioned and the Bazely family was allowed to return. However, the task of restoring Hatherop to its former glory would have been very daunting and, not surprisingly, Sir Thomas Bazley decided against moving back. In 1946 Owlstone Croft School, which had outgrown its accommodation in Cambridge, moved to Gloucestershire and changed its name to Hatherop Castle School. For nearly fifty years it continued as a Girls' Boarding School until, in 1992, it became a Preparatory School with Paul Easterbrook as its Head.