Hertfordshire Towns & Villages

According to Gompertz's Gresham Lodge No.869: A Review of the Past Twenty-One Years, 1861-1881, from 9th October 1875 that lodge met at Cheshunt Great House. A description of the first meeting on that site occurs on pages 15-16 of the lodge history, which also contains photographs of lodge members taken in June 1885 and in 1903, possibly taken in front of Cheshunt Great House doors. On the 8th July 1876, the Provincial Grand Lodge of Hertfordshire was held at the House. A later lodge history by Robert E. Harrison notes that on the 9th June 1883, F.D.R. Copestick read a paper on the history of the Great House. It would seem that this paper was later published and we have a copy in our collection under the rather length title The Manor of Andrewes, and Le Motte, the Present Home of the Gresham Lodge of Freemasons: Being an Historical Account of Cheshunt Great House from the Fourteenth Century. Copestick's account, whilst focusing mainly on the early history of the House, also features a pen and ink drawing of the banqueting hall and lists the paintings in the hall and the 'ten hatchments with armorial bearings'.

 

In 1903 it became necessary for Gresham Lodge to register as a club in order to comply with legislation regarding meetings held in private buildings. This club was known as the Great House Co. Ltd. In 1906 it was reported that the owners of the Great House were interested in selling and "the lodge was informed that in the opinion of the Solicitors for the Vendor the Great House could be purchased for a very reasonable sum". Although the original asking price appears to have been £2000 for the House with approximately three acres of ground, it was later reduced to £900 and most lodge members bought shares in the Great House Co. Ltd. After August 1939, the Great House was requisitioned for wartime requirements and after the war the condition of the Great House was found to be too costly to modernise. It was later sold by the Great House Co. Ltd.

 

Gaddesden Lodge No.3398 received its warrant in 1909 and appears to have also met at the Great House from that date until the Second World War. Unfortunately, the lodge has not published a lodge history and so I am unable to provide further details regarding their use of the House. Gaddesden Lodge was the daughter lodge of Gresham Lodge, meaning that it was sponsored by that lodge and may have been intended as an offshoot to allow younger lodge members a better chance of progression in freemasonry (for example, in giving them a greater opportunity to hold positions within the lodge).

Source [Emily Green, http://www.freemasonry.london.museum ]

Cheshunt Great House 2007

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Moat of Cheshunt Great House

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