Bearwood House

About

Bearwood or Bear Wood, in Sindlesham, Berkshire, England, is a Victorian country house built for John Walter, the owner of The Times. The architect was Robert Kerr and the house was constructed between 1865 and 1874. The family fortune had been made by Walter's grandfather, John Walter I. Originally a coal merchant and underwriter, in 1785 John Walter had established The Daily Universal Register, renamed as The Times in 1788. In 1816 Walter's father, John Walter II purchased the Bear Wood estate in Berkshire from the Crown Estate and in 1822 built a small villa on the site of the present house. Nothing remains of this first building, which was swept away in the gargantuan rebuilding undertaken by Kerr for John Walter III. The cost, £129,000, equivalent to £12,612,114 in 2025, was double the original estimate.

In 1919 the house was sold and subsequently gifted to the Royal Merchant Navy School, which had been established in the City of London in 1827 to educate the sons of merchant sailors lost at sea. The school moved into Bearwood in 1922. In 1966 it was renamed Bearwood College, but falling pupil numbers, declining revenues and increasing costs led to the college's closure in 2014. In the same year the site was purchased by the Reddam Group of international schools and renamed Reddam House, Berkshire.

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