Mentmore Towers, Leighton Buzzard, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. 

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Baron Meyer de Rothschild bought the manor of Mentmore from the trustees of the three daughters of William Harcourt in 1850, having already acquired most of the adjoining land during the 1830s-1840s. Rothschild employed Joseph Paxton and Paxton's son-in-law G H Stokes 1851-1853, to design a mansion on a grand scale, situated in a prominent, elevated position in the midst of the Vale of Aylesbury, together with an impressive garden and park to complement it, created from unadorned agricultural land. The framework of the landscape was established at this time, including roads, avenues, drives, woods and gardens with the house at the heart of the landscape. The nurseryman James Veitch is credited with much of the planting (Inspector's Report 1988). Following the Baron's death in 1874, his daughter, Hannah, married Lord Rosebery in 1878, who expanded the initial layout, extending the garden south of the house into the park, and created a series of gardens in the pleasure grounds east of the house (Debois 1992). A further period of park and woodland planting occurred in about 1900, together with the construction of two further lodges. The Rosebery family sold the estate in 1977, when the house and gardens were bought by the World Government of the Age of Enlightenment. A golf course was constructed over much of the park in about 1990. The house and gardens have recently (2000) been sold and development proposals are being drawn up.