High Elms Manor 1.33

High Elms Manor is a grade II listed Georgian country house located near Garston in Hertfordshire, England. It was built in around 1812, and was originally known as "High Elms", but from the 1890s to 2010 it was called Garston Manor.In the post World War II years the house was a rehabilitation centre, but it later fell derelict. In the 1990s an American named Sheila O'Neill bought and restored it and used it as a Montessori School.Augustus and Mary Ann Cavendish BradshawAugustus Cavendish Bradshaw was the originator of High Elms. He appears to have purchased the Estate in the early 1800s and either built High Elms or made very substantial alterations to a small existing building. He and his wife Mary Ann were a very notable couple at this time.Augustus was born in 1768. His father was Sir Henry Cavendish of Doveridge Hall in Derbyshire and his mother was Sarah Bradshaw who later became Baroness Waterpark. He was educated at Cambridge University.In 1796 he married Mary Ann (sometimes written Marianne) Jeffreys who was the daughter of James St John Jeffreys of Blarney Castle in Ireland. Mary Ann had previously been married to George Frederick Nugent, the Earl of Westmeath and she became the Countess of Westmeath. In 1796 in a sensational court case she divorced Nugent and soon after married Augustus.Mary Ann had considerable literary talent and wrote two novels. The first was called “Maria Countess of D’Alva” which she wrote 1808 and is set at the time of the Spanish Armada in the 16th Century. The second novel written in 1810, was called “Ferdinand and Ordella: A Russian Story” and was at the time of Peter the Great. Both novels were written during the period that the couple lived at High Elms. In 1806, Sir Thomas Lawrence painted the portraits of both Mary Ann and Augustus. and Mary Ann’s portrait is shown on the left.