With its beautiful Victorian façade, extensive parkland and landscaped gardens, High Leigh would look right at home in any TV period drama. This tranquil and spacious setting is one of the things that makes High Leigh so popular, giving all of the delegates who attend events at the centre plenty of space to relax, unwind and reflect on everything they’ve learned during the day.
Originally built in 1853, High Leigh was bought by successful banker and committed Christian Robert Barclay in 1871.
Robert Barclay was born on 13 December 1843, in Walthamstow, Essex, the son of Joseph Gurney Barclay and Mary Walker Barclay. Over the generations, his ancestors had married into many other prominent banking families, and he was responsible for merging 20 banks into Barclay and Company Ltd. Robert was an Anglican, and his family also played key roles in the life of the Church of England. He married Elizabeth Ellen Buxton (1848-1911), a granddaughter of the 19th-century reformer and campaigner against slavery, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and they had a large family that included CMS missionaries.
High Leigh’s main claim to fame is its garden. Covering 40 acres of some of Hertfordshire’s most beautiful countryside, the parkland is dotted with formal areas, woodland, lawns and ponds. Some of the house’s most prominent outdoor features were created by the Pulhams, a famous family of landscape gardeners who owned Pulham Manufactory in Broxbourne. The manufactory was located just over a mile away from High Leigh, so it’s likely that the Pulham’s themselves will have worked on the design and installation of many of the pieces in the property’s garden.
Delegates staying at High Leigh can take the time to discover the fountain, rockery and cave, the sunken pump house and the rock arch that leads people back towards the house from the wooded part of the gardens which are still there today.
Much of the original manor house remains unchanged. Whilst at High Leigh, take time to visit the Woodlands Lounge (above). You can stand in the exact spot this picture was taken almost 100 years ago. If your event is taking place in Oak Room (below) you can still admire the period features of this grand 19th-century building.
Robert Barclay died in 1921 and the house was sold to First Conference Estate of which he had been a director. First Conference Estate (now known as Christian Conference Trust) was founded in 1909 with the express purpose of providing affordable facilities for various missionary and other Christian societies. The Hayes, in Derbyshire, was opened in 1910 with High Leigh following 11 years later.
