Sunningdale Park is a country estate centred around a property known as Northcote House in

Sunningdale Sunningdale is a large village with a retail area and a civil parish in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. It takes up the extreme south-east corner of Berkshire, England. It has a railway station on the (London) Waterloo to Reading ...

, Berkshire.

History

The house is thought to have been built by

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806. Early life W ...

, almost certainly for James William Steuart, a farmer, in around 1787. It was acquired by Sir Charles Decimus Crosley, a former

Sheriff of London Two sheriffs are elected annually for the City of London by the Liverymen of the City livery companies. Today's sheriffs have only nominal duties, but the historical officeholders had important judicial responsibilities. They have attended the ju ...

from the Steuart family in 1859. It then passed to Sir James Thompson Mackenzie, 1st Baronet in 1883, to Major William James Joicey, the then serving High Sheriff of Durham, in 1890 and to Sir Hugo Cunliffe-Owen, an industrialist, in 1930. Northcote House accommodated the Civil Defence College from 1950 until it closed in 1968. The Civil Service College was then established in the building in June 1970. The ill-fated

Sunningdale Agreement The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The agreement was signed at Sunningdale Park located in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1973. Unioni ...

on power-sharing in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

was signed in Northcote House on 9 December 1973. The Civil Service College evolved to become the

National School of Government The National School of Government (previously known as the Civil Service College and the Centre for Management and Policy Studies, or CMPS) was the part of the Cabinet Office that ran training, organisational development and consultancy courses ...

, which provided training, organisational development and consultancy courses for UK civil servants and private individual learners until its closure in March 2012. In March 2015, the

College of Policing The College of Policing is a professional body for the police in England and Wales. It was established in 2012 to take over a number of training and development roles that were the responsibility of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA ...

opened an office in the Albert Day building. Sunningdale Park was then sold to

Audley Retirement Audley Group (formerly known as Audley Retirement, trading name of Audley Court Ltd) is a builder (retirement communities) and manager in the British retirement property industry. It is based in Egham. The company has two property brands in the UK ...

and

Berkeley Homes The Berkeley Group Holdings plc is a British property developer and house-builder based in Cobham, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History The company was founded by Tony Pidg ...

in December 2016.

Architecture

In grounds of there is a Grade II listed neo-

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

mansion called Northcote House, which was built in 1930, and in which notable features include the grand staircase and front portico. The landscaped park and gardens are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

References

External links

* *{{History, https://www.englefieldgreen.org.uk/scr/histlist.php?locid=&bid=56 Grade II listed buildings in Berkshire Country houses in Berkshire Grade II listed houses Grade II listed parks and gardens in Berkshire