Putteridge Bury is a country house on the edge of the built-up area of Luton

Luton

Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....

, Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 but actually over the county boundary in the parish of Offley

Offley

Offley is a civil parish in the English county of Hertfordshire, between Hitchin and Luton. The main village is Great Offley, and the parish also contains the nearby hamlets of Little Offley and The Flints...

 in Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

.

Mansion

The mansion was built in the style of Chequers

Chequers

Chequers, or Chequers Court, is a country house near Ellesborough, to the south of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills...

 by architects Sir Ernest George

Ernest George

Sir Ernest George RA was an English architect, landscape and architectural watercolour painter, and etcher.-Life and work:...

 and Alfred Yeats and completed in 1911. The grounds were redesigned by Edwin L Lutyens

Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...

, soon to be recognised as the foremost architect of the era, and planted by Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll was an influential British garden designer, writer, and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and the USA and contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines.-Early life:...

, one of the first lady Victorian gardeners. Particular features are the reflective pool and massive yew

Taxus baccata

Taxus baccata is a conifer native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia. It is the tree originally known as yew, though with other related trees becoming known, it may be now known as the English yew, or European yew.-Description:It is a small-...

 hedges.

Queen Mary

Mary of Teck

Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....

 and King George V

George V of the United Kingdom

George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

 often visited Putteridge Bury with the Prince of Wales

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom

Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...

 and on 1 December 1926 the King planted an oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

 tree in the lawn to the south of the house.

Park

The Putteridge estate is a mixture of arable farmland and woodland; as well as the occasional visiting muntjac

Muntjac

Muntjac, also known as Barking Deer and Mastreani Deer, are small deer of the genus Muntiacus. Muntjac are the oldest known deer, appearing 15–35 million years ago, with remains found in Miocene deposits in France, Germany and Poland....

 and fallow deer

Fallow Deer

The Fallow Deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. This common species is native to western Eurasia, but has been introduced widely elsewhere. It often includes the rarer Persian Fallow Deer as a subspecies , while others treat it as an entirely different species The Fallow...

, the estate is home to Lady Amherst's Pheasant

Lady Amherst's Pheasant

The Lady Amherst's Pheasant, Chrysolophus amherstiae, is a bird of the order Galliformes and the family Phasianidae.These are native to south western China and Myanmar, but have been introduced elsewhere, and have established a self-supporting, but now declining, feral population in England, the...

 (Chrysolophus amherstiae) as well as the more common pheasant.

History

In 1965 it was acquired by Luton Borough Council and opened as Putteridge Bury College of Education in 1966.

Following Government cutbacks during the 1970s Putteridge Bury ended its brief life as a teacher training centre and was merged with Luton Technical College to become the Luton College of Higher Education, in September 1978.

From 1985 the function rooms were gradually renovated to their original splendour and to conference centre standards.

The unused gymnasium was converted to a learning resources centre.

Luton College of Higher Education became the University of Luton in 1993, and remains University of Bedfordshire

University of Bedfordshire

The University of Bedfordshire is based in Luton and Bedford, the two largest towns in the English county of Bedfordshire. The university was created by the merger of the University of Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort University on 1 August 2006 following approval by the Privy Council...

property after the merger with the Bedford campus of De Montfort University in August 2006.

Further reading

James Dyer, The Stopsley Book, Book Castle, 1998, ISBN 1-871199-04-2, pp. 56–64.

External links

• University of Bedfordshire, Putteridge Bury Campus History