Aldenham House

About

Aldenham House is an English country house in Elstree, just south-east of Aldenham village and west of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England. It was the seat of the Gibbs family, who were the Barons Aldenham, and is now a main building of the Haberdashers' Boys' School, while its estate accommodates the other school buildings, the Haberdashers' School for Girls, the Lister Institute, and the Hilfield Reservoir.

The house was built about 1672 for H. Coghill the Younger and was acquired, renovated and extended about 1870 by Hucks Gibbs, 1st Baron Aldenham. In 1932, the estate was sold after the death of its then occupant Vicary Gibbs, a financier, former member of parliament, and avid plant collector who had amassed a larger collection of Chinese flora than the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Gibbs never married, and most of the plant collection was auctioned after his death.