The Changed Order

When the Dowager Lady Cooper moved out of the House in 1942, to another family home, the furnishings of the House were either moved to the family’s other homes or stored until after the war. The set of seven Beauvais tapestries were for many years on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. During the years of the Second World War the English park house and gardens atmosphere faded and decayed through neglect, although the House was maintained to a certain extent.

After Vickers moved out to South Marston in late 1956, the owner of Hursley Park, Captain Sir George Cooper (the eldest son of the first Sir George Cooper), had the whole site surveyed for repairs and valuation in 1957. The changed economic climate made Hursley Park House too impractical to use as a private residence again and so the entertainment hall, now in a ruinous state, was demolished and the House and site prepared for a new tenant.

Part of the preparation included, as already mentioned, giving to Winchester College the oak panelling attributed to Grinling Gibbons from the reception and side halls in the House. This was used in the New Hall at the College because the panelling, as previously noted, originally came from the College Chapel.

IBM’s Development Laboratories in the United Kingdom were formed in London on 1 January 1956. It was always the intention that the new Laboratories should move out of London. IBM had bought a piece of land in North Baddesley, four miles (6 km) south of Hursley, with the intention of constructing a purpose-built facility there. In 1958, IBM took up the lease to house the Laboratories temporarily in Hursley Park House, until the North Baddesley facility was ready. In December 1958, 40 staff and their equipment moved there in readiness to move to a purpose-built facility at North Baddesley. However such was the rate of growth that Hursley proved to be the better site and, when the opportunity came to purchase the House with some 100 acres (40 hectares) in 1961, after the death of Captain Sir George Cooper, IBM became the owners of this idyllic site and built the purpose-designed buildings to the south east of the House. The North Baddesley site was never developed.