VICE president, Pam Pratt, opened the September meeting and introduced the morning’s speaker, Ceri Lowen, and her technical assistant, Janet, from Chelmsford Council. Ceri’s topic was the History and Restoration of Hylands House, illustrated with slides of the house throughout the centuries.

It began as an elegant, two-storey, red-brick Queen Anne-style house on an estate in Writtle. It was commissioned in 1726 as a family home for lawyer Sir John Comyns and was completed in 1730 with grounds set out in the geometric style fashionable at the time.

It passed down the family until being purchased in 1797 by Cornelius Kortright, a merchant and trader with sugar plantations in the West Indies. He employed well-known landscape architect Humphrey Repton to redesign the gardens.

The grand plans to add east and west wings, a colonnaded portico and to cover the house in white stucco did not come to completion until a Dutch-born merchant banker, Pierre Labouchere, purchased the property in 1814, resulting in the neo-classical facade that can be seen today. He also commissioned the Georgian stable block and Coachman’s Cottage and collected many neo-classical sculptures, replicas of which are on display today.

Many more extensions and enlargements were made to the house and grounds during the time of successive owners until the time of the last private owner, Mrs Christine Hanbury. During the Second World War, the estate was the site of a German PoW Camp and the house was used as the headquarters of the SAS. After Mrs Hanbury’s death in 1962, Hylands was once again put up for sale and was bought by Chelmsford Council in 1966. With the co-operation of English Heritage, the council and the approval of the people of Chelmsford, the house has been reduced to its 19th century appearance and the immense restoration work has been ongoing since 1985, with the final phase supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Since 1996 the parkland has been the venue of the V Festival. The fascinating presentation was warmly received and left the members keen to visit Hylands House.

The next meeting will be at the Masonic Hall, in Lenthall Avenue, Grays, on October 15, at 10.15am, when members and visitors will hear Mr M Fuller talk on Saving Gorillas. All retired teachers in the area will be warmly welcomed.