CHERKLEY COURT - A TALE OF CONTRASTING OWNERSHIP

The owners of Cherkley Court, the mansion outside Leatherhead, featured in the Leatherhead & District Local History Society's first lecture of 2019. Now a luxury hotel named after the second of two historical owners, Lord Beaverbrook (shown above) it may claim the most fascinating heritage of any local building.

There have been three separate owners since construction in the 1860s: the Dixons, the Aitkens and their Beaverbrook Foundation, and now the hotel company. Abraham Dixon (1815-1907), the wool manufacturer who built Cherkley Court 1866-1870, is known as one of Leatherhead's great historical benefactors. As soon as he arrived with his family in 1871 he took an active interest in local affairs and donated large funds to the community. Years later aged 77, he masterminded and funded creation of the Letherhead Institute.  

Abraham and his brother George, a Liberal MP, both believed that education provided better citizenship and Abraham implemented the principle in Leatherhead. Cherkley's beautiful house, tropical greenhouse and grounds were often open to visitors and this continued beyond his death as his daughters followed suit.The tropical house and the mansion itself, rebuilt after a fire in 1893, are shown top and centre above.

The Canadian newspaper tycoon William Maxwell Aitken (1879-1964), later Lord Beaverbrook, could hardly have been a greater contrast. He bought Cherkley in 1910 after the Dixons' daughters moved away. Helping the local community was never again a priority although he was there for over half a century.

A millionaire at 30, Aitken decided business opportunities were greater in Britain and, through contacts, won a seat in Parliament. Suspicions among fellow MPs continued when he was also given a knighthood. As owner of the London Evening Standard and the Express newspaper group he built these into populist propaganda vehicles,  claiming the world's largest circulation of any paper. In both world wars he held office as a government minister, backing first David Lloyd George and later Winston Churchill but each time soon moving on.

Cherkley Court had ticker tape machines with news continually arriving and banks of telephones ringing. When he was there, Beaverbrook could be found firing off memorandums, leaking gossip, and barking orders down the telephone to terrified editors.

Leatherhead residents interviewed after his death consistently stress his unpopularity. Thomas Lewis (1904-1996), whose father had worked in Venthams Garage when it built horse-drawn carriages, said Cherkley had been happy under the Dixons but Beaverbrook removed flower beds and just had contractors cut grass. Half of the place was turned into offices. Leonard Rogers (1906-1988), a footman for Beaverbrook, said the tycoon only came from London at weekends to use the house to entertain well known personalities, especially actresses. 

The Aitkens retained Cherkley Court until the mid-1990s when it was taken over by the Beaverbrook Foundation. This later opened 16 acres of formal gardens to paying visitors in 2007 but it was sold again to the firm Longshot Cherkley Court which fought a long battle with campaigners before the estate was converted into today's hotel and golf course.

For titles of future talks at the Letherhead Institute in the coming months go to the above menu and select SOCIETY, then click on NEWS.