In the early 1980s, I had the opportunity to spend a year as a German assistant at two schools in Hertfordshire, one in Hatfield, and the other one was Chancellor’s School, at the eastern side of the village of Brookmans Park.
Chancellor’s School first opened its doors to students in September 1964, so anyone expecting medieval looking buildings will be disappointed – it’s rather run of the mill sixties’ style functionality. However, the name reflects a connection to more interesting times. The teachers told me that the school owes its name to Sir Thomas More, sometime chancellor of Henry VIII, because it was built on land which once belonged to him. When during the year of A Man for All Seasons was performed in nearby Welwyn Garden City, they invited me to go and see it with them.
While Sir Thomas More is not my most favourite historical person, my memory of the year spent at Chancellor’s School, led me to find out a bit more about his country estate in Hertfordshire. This is the manor of More Hall (also known as Gobions or Gubbins), one of four manors in the North Mymms area, the others being Brookmans, from which the name of the village is derived, North Mymms and Potterells.[i]
The first authentic mention we have of the estate is from 1300, when a Roger de Bachesworth retired to a manor of the Hospitallers called More Hall.[ii] Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have enjoyed his retirement for very long as we learn that ”the said Roger went to a manor of the Hospitallers called More Halle, and there stayed for eight days in good health and afterwards became ill and died”.[iii]
By 1390, it belonged to a John More. Whether he was or was not ancestor of Thomas More is disputed. According to one author, referenced in the VCH, he was a mercer and citizen of London and Thomas was descended from him.[iv] Others, however, say that it only came into the possession of Thomas’s family only during the lifetime of his father, another (Sir) John More (c.1451–1530), who inherited Gobions from his maternal grandmother Johanna Joye (nee Leycester).[v]
Once it was in the possession of Sir John More, he set about enlarging and remodelling the house. It seems he and his family were “deeply attached to their country home, spending in it whatever time they could spare from their duties in London”. Sir Thomas More also enjoyed the family tradition. He is said to have spent quite some time at More Hall in 1515-1516, while writing Utopia. Thomas was Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. It’s even possible that Henry VIII visited him at his country home during this time.[vi]
As is well known, the relationship between Thomas More and Henry VIII soured and More was executed in 1535. Then Henry VIII confiscated the manor. Henry as well as his successors leased More Hall to various people. However, in 1553 Queen Mary granted the reversion of the manor after the expiry of the leases to descendents of Sir Thomas More, i.e. his daughter-in-law Anne and her son Thomas (II) (1531-1606).[vii] After the expiry of the leases, the son of Thomas II, Christopher Cresacre More (1572–1649), lived at More Hall/Gobions from 1617 onwards.[viii]
After his death, the estate passed through various hands. In the early 18th century, it belonged to Sir Jeremy Sambrooke (?1703-40), whose family had made their money with the East India Company.[ix] He undertook an extensive improvement campaign of the mansion and garden. He commissioned James Gibbs to remodel the mansion and Charles Bridgeman to improve the grounds from the 1720s onwards.
Another 100 years later, Gobions (as it was then known) was bought by Robert William Gaussen, who owned Brookmans to the north. Soon after, the house was demolished, and the grounds were incorporated into those of Brookmans.[x] Unfortunately this means that no bricks and mortar of Sir Thomas’s house is left.
There is one extant building in the area where More Hall used to be and at first sight it might be mistaken for something from Tudor times. This the Folly Arch, built out of red brick, with a large rounded arch and a square turret on each side. [xi] However, this is only from Sambrooke’s changes and was probably designed by either Gibbs or Bridgewater.[xii]
The Oak Mantelpiece
During his rebuilding effort, Sambrooke kept an oak mantelpiece[xiii]. This featured in the background of a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger of Thomas More and his family. The painting used to hang in More Hall but was destroyed in a fire in 1752. A study for the painting still exists, but it does not include the mantelpiece.
When More Hall/Gobions came on the market in 1838, the auctioneer’s particulars for the sale mention “a finely Carved Oak Chimney Piece, bearing the date of 1527, formerly the Altar Piece of Sir THOMAS MORE.”[xiv] The year, 1527, fits in with the time of Sir John More’s renovations of More Hall.
Before knocking More Hall down, Robert William Gaussen had the mantelpiece as well as other decorations transferred to his other manor. In 1891, a fire broke out at Brookmans, but the staff managed to save some of the furniture as well as the mantelpiece. The mansion was not rebuilt, but some stables were converted into a residence. However, the mantelpiece was too large for the new house and ended up being stored in a barn.
We next hear about the mantelpiece in an advert in a 1930 magazine for “A carved oak Elizabethan Chimneypiece removed from Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire”. Enlarging the photograph in the ad, we can see that the year 1527 has been carved into the wood, confirming that this was part of More Hall from the time of Sir John and his family. The mantelpiece was then sold to someone in Birkenhead, Wirral, but that was where the trail went cold. Then the North Mymms History Project managed to get in contact with local historian and photographer David Humphreys, who decided to do some detective work. He found the mantelpiece in November 2019 at the Hillbark Hotel at Frankby, Wirral, where it stands to this day in the great hall.[xv]
The new house of the Gaussen family eventually became the club house of Brookmans Park Golf Club, which is not far from Chancellor’s School. I remember walking past it fairly often, though being completely oblivious of its significance.
Notes:
[i] ‘Parishes: North Mimms’, in: A History of the County of Hertford, vol. 2, ed. William Page. London, 1908, pp. 251-261. British History Online URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/herts/vol2/pp251-261
[ii] ‘Parishes: North Mimms’
[iii] Sharp, J.E.E.S. & A.E. Stamp, ‘Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward I, File 103’, in: Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 4: Edward I. London, 1913, pp. 28-43. British History Online URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol4/pp28-43
[iv] Phillips, M., ‘”Folly Gates”, near Potter’s Bar’, The Home Counties Magazine, vol. IV (1902), pp. 124-126 (here p. 125)
[v] Barron, C.M., ‘The making of a London Citizen’, in: The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More, ed. G.M. Logan. Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp.3-21 (here p. 3); Ives, E.W., ‘More, Sir John (c.1451–1530)’, Oxford DNB (online 3 Jan. 2008)
[vi] Phillips, op.cit.; Colville, D., ‘Chapter XI – Three Famous Writers’, in: North Mymms – Parish and People (1971). Online URL: https://www.northmymmshistory.uk/2018/01/north-mymms-parish-and-people.html#c11
[vii] Davidson, A., ‘More, Thomas II (1531-1606), of Hambleden, Bucks.; Barnbrough, Yorks.; Leyton, Essex and North Mimms, Herts’, in: The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff. Boydell & Brewer, 1982. Online URL: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/more-thomas-ii-1531-1606
[viii] Anderson, J.H., ‘More, (Christopher) Cresacre (1572–1649)’, Oxford DNB (online 23 Sept. 2004)
[ix] Lea, R.S., ‘Sambrooke, Sir Jeremy Vanacker, 4th Bt. (?1703-40), of Bush Hill, nr. Enfield, Mdx’, in: The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick. Boydell & Brewer, 1970. Online URL: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/sambrooke-sir-jeremy-vanacker-1703-40
[x] ‘Parishes: North Mimms’
[xi] ‘The Folly Arch (1100984)’, Historic England. URL: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1100984?section=official-list-entry; Miller, P., ‘Folly Arch through the Ages’, North Mymms History Project (2018). URL: https://www.northmymmshistory.uk/2018/12/folly-arch-over-ages.html
[xii] Rowe, A. & T. Williamson, ‘New Light on Gobions’, Garden History, vol. 40, no. 1 (Summer 2012), pp. 82-97 (online https://www.jstor.org/stable/41719889)
[xiii] For the history of the mantelpiece: ‘Discovering the 1527 altarpiece of Saint Thomas More’, The North Mymms History Project (Nov. 2019). URL: https://www.northmymmshistory.uk/2019/11/Discovering-the-1527-altar-piece-of-Saint-Thomas-More.html
[xiv] Quoted in ‘Discovering the 1527 altarpiece of Saint Thomas More’
[xv] The intricate history of Hillbark is explained on the hotel website, URL: https://www.hillbarkhotel.co.uk/at-home/
(All links checked 16 Feb. 2023)
Dottie Tales 
