Amport House

The current house was built in 1857 in an Elizabethan style near the village of Amport by John Paulet, 14th Marquess of Winchester, replacing two earlier houses which had stood on the site.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-428000-144000/page/17|title=Amport House|publisher=Doomsday Reloaded| accessdate= 7 August 2014}} It has a gatehouse and a pleached avenue of lime trees, now believed to be the longest such avenue in the United Kingdom.{{cite web|url=http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/DefenceEstateandEnvironment/MODFilmLocations/South/AmportHouse.htm| publisher=Ministry of Defence |title=Amport House |date=19 November 2010|accessdate=22 June 2012}}

The last of the Paulet family to reside at Amport was Henry Paulet, 16th Marquess of Winchester. Facing high levels of taxation at the end of the First World War, he sold the estate in lots between November 1918 and July 1919.{{cite web |title=Amport History |url=http://amportvillage.co.uk/about/amport-history/ |website=Amport Village and Parish |accessdate=14 June 2019}}"High Court of Justice King's Bench Division, Marquess of Winchester Sued: Chandler and Co. v. Winchester", The Times, Issue 45501, Thursday, May 1, 1930, pg. 5, col. F Not long afterwards, the house and grounds were bought by Colonel Sofer Whitburn DSO, who in 1923 engaged Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll to redesign the gardens.

At the start of the Second World War, the house was requisitioned to be used as the headquarters of Royal Air Force Maintenance Command; as well as ceding them use of the house, Sofer Whitburn is reported to have donated his entire wine cellar to the Officers' Mess as a patriotic gesture. In 1943, with the RAF still in possession, he sold the house; in 1957, the RAF itself bought the property. Later that year, the Royal Air Force Chaplains' School moved from Dowdeswell Court in Dowdeswell to Amport House.{{cite web|title=Parishes: Dowdeswell, A History of the County of Gloucester: volume 9: Bradley hundred. The Northleach area of the Cotswolds |year=2001|pages= 42–69|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66462 |accessdate=7 August 2014}} The School included a Royal Navy chaplain staff member, and in 1996, with the closure of the depot of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department at Bagshot Park, it became the tri-service Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre.{{cite web|url=http://www.surreyheath.gov.uk/Surrey%20Heath%20Borough%20Council/Bagshot%20Park.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106002138/http://www.surreyheath.gov.uk/Surrey%20Heath%20Borough%20Council/Bagshot%20Park.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 January 2009 |title=Bagshot Park Conservation Area |publisher=Surrey Heath Borough Council |accessdate=7 August 2014 }}

In 1984, Amport House became a Grade II listed building.{{NHLE|num=1093277|desc=Amport House|access-date=26 October 2017|mode=cs2}}

In September 2016, the Ministry of Defence announced that Amport House would be put up for sale as part of a programme of defence estate rationalisation.{{cite news|title=Military sites sold as part of £225m scheme to make way for 17,000 homes|url=http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/14725836.Military_sites_sold_as_part_of___225m_scheme_to_make_way_for_17_000_homes/|work=Southern Daily Echo|location=Southampton|date=6 September 2016|accessdate=6 September 2016}} A Better Defence Estate, published in November 2016, indicated that the Armed Forces Chaplaincy would close by 2020, which it subsequently did, to be relocated to Shrivenham, near Swindon.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/576401/Better_Defence_Estate_Dec16_Amends_Web.pdf|title=A Better Defence Estate|last=|first=|date=7 November 2016|website=GOV.UK|publisher=Ministry of Defence|page=31|access-date=18 November 2017}} The licence for the publication of banns of marriage and the solemnisation of such marriages which had been granted to the chapel in January 2000 in accordance with the Marriage Act 1949 was cancelled in July 2020.{{London Gazette|issue=63088|date=20 August 2020|page=14162}}

A converted stable block at the house was for some years the home of the Royal Army Chaplains' Museum, which also moved to Shrivenham.{{cite web|url=http://apps.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/searches/locresult_details.asp?LR=3152|title=Museum of Army Chaplaincy|publisher=National Archives|

accessdate= 7 August 2014}}

In 2021, plans were announced to convert Amport House into an hotel. {{cite web |last1=Ashworth |first1=James |title=Plans to convert Amport House into Another Place hotel |url=https://www.andoveradvertiser.co.uk/news/19515994.plans-convert-amport-house-another-place-hotel/ |website=Andover Advertiser |access-date=18 August 2021}}

• Royal Air Force: Branches and trades
• Bishop to the Forces (Anglican)
• Bishopric of the Forces (Roman Catholic)
• Military chaplain: United Kingdom
• International Military Chiefs of Chaplains Conference
• Religion in the United Kingdom

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category|Amport House}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060106151043/http://www.da.mod.uk/AFCC Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre]. Defence Academy of the United Kingdom official website
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20101209033636/http://www.raf.mod.uk/chaplains/whoweare/amporthouse.cfm Who we are: Amport House]. RAF Chaplains official website

{{Defence Academy of the United Kingdom}}

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Category:Royal Air Force stations in Hampshire

Category:Installations of the British Army

Category:Royal Navy bases in Hampshire

Category:Tudor Revival architecture in England

Category:Andover, Hampshire

Category:Country houses in Hampshire

Category:Royal Army Chaplains' Department

Category:Elizabethan architecture

Category:Houses completed in 1857

Category:Gardens in Hampshire

Category:Gardens by Gertrude Jekyll

Category:Works of Edwin Lutyens in England

Category:1857 establishments in England

Category:Grade II listed houses in Hampshire