The house was designed in the Queen Anne style and built for Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe in 1874.[1] It contains the prototype of the Great Clock in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster.[2] The site was acquired by St Albans Council in 1935 when John Henry Taylor was commissioned to design and establish an 18-hole golf course in the grounds.[3] The house became an event venue in the 1970s.[4] An arson attack resulted in the complete destruction of the Batchwood Tennis and Golf Centre in August 2011.[5] It operated as a vaccination centre, organised by a consortium of local GPs, during the COVID-19 pandemic.[6]
References
^"Batchwood Hall". St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological History Society. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
