Gorse Hill

From the very beginning the fortunes of Gorse Hill as the house was first called have been closely bound up with the world of transport.

The Original mansion was built between 1910 and 1912 – a momentous time not only for the building but also for the nation.  A page of history was being quietly turned.  In may 1910 Bertie died of bronchitis and was succeeded by George V who faced a constitutional crisis; Asquith was Prime Minister; Scott sailed away on his ill-fated expedition; Crippen was up to no good in North London; the Suffragettes were making a calculated nuisance of themselves; and Marie Lloyd and Vesta Tilley were packing them in at the Music Halls.

But the old era of Edwardian elegance was drifting into dissolution.  It was time of strikes and militancy, there was talk of a minimum wage and Lloyd George had put up his unemployment and health insurance schemes.  Event the streets of London looked different, motor cars were no longer the extravagant toys of the rich, there were fewer and fewer horses to be seen and more taxi cabs and open top buses.  Liners, locomotives and aeroplanes were the things of the future……

Meanwhile Mr Ingram, a successful underwriter at Lloyds, was building his mansion on proceeds on transport insurance. He commissioned Edward Warren, who was much influenced by the style of Sir Edwin Lutyens, to design it.  For some time it was even thought that the building was the work of this eminent architect, until John Betjeman visited recently and politely exploded the myth!
 But alas! Mr Ingram had not to enjoy his elegant new house.  In 1912 the Titanic, the largest and most luxurious liner in the world, sank on her maiden voyage on an early April morning taking a large part of Mt Ingram’s fortunes with her into the icy waters! Not long afterwards he sold the house leaving us only his initials on the cottage weather vanes.

The next owner was a certain Mr Mobs whose vast fortune could not remove the stigma of his origins in the scrap metal trade; nor could it gain him access to Woking Golf Club – that much sought-after Shangrila – which ran so tantalizingly close to his boundaries.  He removed, lock, stock and barrel.

The Stoke Poges where unkind rumor has it that he cocked a snook at all of them and bought his own golf course.  And breathe it not at Wokings 19th hole, he got himself a knighthood for good measure.

There followed a series of less colorful owners, until the 39-45 war when the fortunes of the house plumbed their greatest depths.  A 500 – pound bomb, destined for the main railway line, fee in the grounds.  The place was evacuated and stood neglected, save for the attentions of the Home Guard and Civil Defence who used it as a base.  The only prosperous tenants of this era were the goldfish who, it seems, multiplied exceedingly, and the local children scooped them up by the bucketful.  History does not relate whether or not they were used to supplement the meagre meat ration.

Shortly after the war in 1947 the house became the home of the Southern Railway Training College.  A local newspaper said at the time its object was primarily to make better railways men; and this presumably it did until August 1959 when the British Transport Commission took over the college and its functions were enlarged to embrace all sections of nationalized transport.  To accommodate the extra students the l-shaped Annexe was built in 1958 providing more bedrooms, syndicate rooms and a lecture hall.

With the end of the commission in 1962 the college became a company for those who preferred their liability limited.. It now acquired its present-day sponsors – the British Railway Board, the National Freight Corporation, the National Ports Council, the National Bus Company, London Transport Executive and the British Transport Docks Board.  In January 1975 United Transport Overseas Limited became a sponsor.  The College is also used regularly by many other organizations both Britain and overseas.

The latest additions to the college were the octagonal Library and the block to house the administrative and directing staff.  Mrs Barbara Castle, then Minister of Transport opened the buildings, in November 1967.  On her arrival, she had first to run the gauntlet of 20 local publicans who, as black limousine swept through the gates, told her fairly strongly what they thought of the new breathalyzer law.

Arthur Bryant said we cannot re-create the past, but we cannot recreate it.  It is in our blood and bone.  If this is true of nations it is also true buildings.  The past here at the college lies in bricks and mortar.  But if we should, in the future, ever aspire to a ghost, I know what it will be – a bespectacled librarian answering to the name of Frank, with an owl on each shoulder.

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