Archived Page
This page is no longer maintained.
For up-to-date information please see the
new website
The Old Court - Then and Now
It’s with great sadness that I feel it necessary to print the following two pictures. The Old Court featured on the front page of our Newsletter last April, when I finally accepted that it was to be demolished to make way for a block of service apartments. The building was originally one of the five great houses built in South Taplow and it was hoped that a sympathetic builder (and the District Council) would do the same sort of marvellous conversion job that a builder did with Lansdowne House. This was not to be. The Old Court was demolished within a week of our Newsletter appearing and the timing suggested that the owner was very aware that the District had just acquired the power to take over unused buildings. A gang of labourers turned up in the morning and without any attempt at observing safety precautions simply bulldozed the old place to the ground. No effort was made to preserve any of the wonderful woodwork, tiling or old brickwork that made such a feature of the house. Today, as I write, a year later the vermin-infested wreckage still remains. A year ago, days before it was demolished:
As it is today:
