In use 1939-Present | Built 1857 (1857) Opened 1857 | |
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Type Manor house, Chaplaincy Centre Architectural style Tudor Revival architecture Similar Museum of Army Chaplaincy, Defence Academy of the Uni, RAF Neatishead, Joint Helicopter Comman, RAF Bentley Priory | ||
Amport House, currently the British Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre (AFCC), is a manor house (at grid reference SU296440) in the village of Amport, near Andover, Hampshire. It is now a Grade II listed building.
Contents
Map of Amport House, Amport, Andover SP11 8BG, UK
History
The current house, which was built in an Elizabethan style, was constructed near the village of Amport in 1857 by John Paulet, 14th Marquess of Winchester and replaced two earlier houses built on the site. The gardens were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and planted by Gertrude Jekyll. During the 1930s the house was owned by Col. Sofer-Whitburn until it was taken over and used as the headquarters of Royal Air Force Maintenance Command during World War II.
The last of the Paulet family to reside at Amport was Henry Paulet, 16th Marquess of Winchester, who died in 1962. Later that year the Royal Air Force Chaplains' School moved from Dowdeswell Court in Dowdeswell to Amport House. The School, which had included a Royal Navy chaplain staff member, became the tri-service Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre in 1996 on the closure of the depot of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department at Bagshot Park. There is also a gatehouse and a pleached avenue of lime trees, believed to be the longest such avenue in the United Kingdom.
A converted stable block of the house also holds the Museum of Army Chaplaincy.
In September 2016 it was announced that Amport House would be put up for sale as part of a programme of defence estate rationalisation by the Ministry of Defence.