Ashridge

Ashridge is a country estate and stately home in Hertfordshire, England. It is situated in the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, about north of Berkhamsted and north west of London. The estate comprises of woodlands (known as Ashridge Forest), commons and chalk downland which supports a rich variety of wildlife. Today, Ashridge is home to Hult Ashridge, Hult International Business School's executive education programme, as it has been since 1959. The estate is currently owned by the National Trust. Ashridge Priory In mediæval times Ashridge was the location of Ashridge Priory, a college of the monastic order of Bonhommes founded in 1283 by Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall, whose palace was at nearby Berkhamsted Castle. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries the priory was surrendered to the crown and King Henry VIII used it to house his children, namely Prince Edward and the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Eventually he bequeathed the property to his daughter Elizabeth. The priory church was demolished during the reign of Elizabeth I. Egerton family In 1604 the estate became the property of Sir Thomas Egerton. Egerton's son, John Egerton, was created 1st Earl of Bridgewater on 27 May 1617. In 1800, redevelopment of the estate as the Bridgewater residence was begun by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. The Duke demolished most of the Priory and after his death, the present house was constructed between 1808 and 1814 by John Egerton, 7th Earl of Bridgewater. The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater was buried in the Egerton family vault in Little Gaddesden Church, close to Ashridge. In 1848 the estate passed to the Earls Brownlow, another strand of the Egerton family, and then in 1921 it was split, with the land passing to the National Trust, while the house and garden was acquired by speculators. In 1928 Urban Hanlon Broughton purchased the house as a gift for the Conservative Party intended to commemorate Bonar Law. In July 1929 Ashridge opened by Stanley Baldwin as a College under the governance of the Bonar Law Memorial Trust (BLMT).