[97111] Cookham : Moor Hall

Moor Hall, The Moor, Cookham, Berkshire, 1892.

Unlisted.

 

This building stands adjacent to the Hall. Possibly a coach house or lodge?

 

Moor Hall has had many different occupants all with their very own interpretation of the space. It started as private residence before becoming a convalescent nursing home. It was then used as a World War ll evacuation site, a film studio and finally a headquarters for a professional Marketing body and training establishment.

 

The Victorian house was built for Francis Devereaux Lambert. He was a very wealthy man who had amassed his fortune as a coal broker and had earned himself the title of King Coal Lambert. The abundance of chimney stacks show that every room in the building had an open fire due to Lambert's rich connections with the coal industry.

 

Lambert came to realise that the upkeep of the house was a drain on his resources and, in 1939, it was sold to Odeon Cinemas. It was became Odeon Theatres head office and accounts department. There were three wooden dormitory bunkers built out on the back lawns which played host to 250 World War ll evacuees as the war continued with bombings ever present in London.

 

In 1946 Moor Hall took on its largest transformation from administration for Odeon Cinemas to film studio. Walt Disney’s chief assistant David Hand had been persuaded to come over from Hollywood to assist in getting this off the ground and create a uniquely British cartoon style. Moor Hall’s main building was used for administration, dining and recreation and the rest was converted into the eight studio functions, script unit, scene layouts, sound effects and recording.

 

The animation business proved to be unsuccessful and in 1949, the house changed hands again - to The British Tabulating Machine Company. This was very much the start of the microchip and computer technology era. There was training throughout the 50s and 60s and they were very much the forerunners in the technology industry. In 1969 the industry was starting to boom, and Moor Hall was no longer big enough to cope so they moved to Beaumont School in Old Windsor.

 

Moor Hall was bought in 1970 by the Institute of Marketing for use as a training centre for teaching marketing executives and salesmen. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the institute applied for its Royal Charter and became The Chartered Institute of Marketing in 1989. Throughout the 80s and 90s rapid investment was put into the site and the Thames House was the first building to be built followed shortly by the Edinburgh Suite and bedroom block in 1992. The Berkshire Conference centre and Redgrave Suite were added in the late 1990s.

 

Information taken from the book by Roger Parkes: Moor Hall: A History of the Place and its People.

Done