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Thomas Bell Adams seems to have made another attempt to sell Fanhams Hall in 1854; but this again proved unsuccessful. It was not until 27th June 1859 that he signed an agreement with Jacksons & Sons (the agents of Mr. Henry Page) for the sale of the estate. At this time Mr. Page put down the sum of £300 as a deposit, the original intention being that he should take possession on 29th September 1859. In fact a dispute arose over who was responsible for paying the outstanding taxes and tithes on the property, and the sale was delayed until 19th October 1859 when Thomas Bell Adams agreed to indemnify Page against all such charges on the estate and accepted his final payment of £7,500. One of Henry Page’s first actions was to commission a thorough survey of his new estate, though he can hardly have been pleased with its findings. The report submitted by Mr. Heard on 21st September 1859 declared that “the greater part” of the 130 acres 'is at the present time in a foul state from want of good cultivation. The land is badly plowed and abounds in thistles and couch grass”. Mr. Heard put the blame for this dreadful state of affairs squarely on the shoulders of the tenants, who, he claimed, had been allowed to abuse their tenancy agreements due to the lack of supervision by the previous landlords. He concluded by recommending that “some decisive steps should . . . be taken to enforce the fulfillment of these covenants or the arable lands will be much deteriorated in rental value and require an extra outlay of capital to restore them to their original state.” As we know Henry Page was an astute businessman, we can be reasonably certain that he acted on these recommendations. Page had set up as a maltster in Ware and had rapidly accumulated a substantial fortune. However, like Plumer and Adams he did not take up personal residence at Fanhams Hall, but preferred instead to let it out. The tenant he chose to occupy the Hall was Edward Hamilton Hoskins who is described in the 1861 census as a “Fundholder and Merchant”. He and his wife (named as ‘Hannah’ in the 1861 census but as ‘Anna’ in that taken in 1871) brought up all five of their children - three sons and two daughters - in the house. The 1871 census records that they employed five living-in servants who included a butler from Yorkshire, a cook, a nurse and a governess. In the early 1870s various improvements were made to Fanhams by Henry Page in order that it could serve as a home for his son-in-law, Lieutenant Richard Benyon Croft, and his wife Anne Elizabeth Page. Richard Benyon Croft became something of a local celebrity and occupied Fanhams Hall until his death in 1912. Described as “bluff and outspoken, a man given to calling a spade a spade”, he was born in 1843 at North Okendon in Essex, though his family originally came from Croft in Hertfordshire where they could trace their roots back to a mention in the Domesday Book. Croft entered the navy in 1858 and served first in the West Indies before being sent to China. Here he was given command of the rocket boat Imperieuse and was present at the capture of the Taku forts in 1860. For his part in this action he was awarded the medal and clasp. Later he served against the Taiping Rebels near Shanghai and was present when Vice-Admiral Sir James Hope was wounded at Kwongkadza. After marrying Anne Elizabeth Page on 22nd September 1869, he resigned his commission in order to join his father-in-law’s malting business - in which he later became head. Once settled in his new home Croft devoted himself to local affairs. He was elected a member of the Ware board of Guardians in the 1870s, and later, in 1889, a county councillor for the Ware Division of the Hertfordshire County Council. In 1892 he was made High Sheriff of Hertfordshire. One of his greatest interests was education, and it was largely through his efforts that the Ware Grammar School for Boys was created. From its inception he was chairman of its Board of Governors and also served as a governor on the Board of the Hertford Grammar School. Amongst his other numerous offices he was president of the Ware Branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society; President of the Ware Town Band; President of the Ware Unionist Association; President of the East Herts Tariff Reform League and President of the East Herts Union Association. He was made an alderman in 1906. While Richard Benyon Croft and his wife occupied the house, it technically remained the property of the Page family until 1899 when Mr Henry Page’s widow - Anne Elizabeth Collins Page- died.
For the purpose of assessing the value of the property for estate duty, Anne Elizabeth Page Croft (who inherited her mothers estate) employed R. & A. G. Thorowgood to value Fanhams. Their report, which was presented on 20th January 1900 and is preserved in the Hertfordshire Record Office, is extremely interesting. It reveals that a formal tenancy agreement existed between Richard Benyon Croft and his Mother-in-law by which he rented Fanhams Hall - then described as “A Freehold Country Family Residence with Stabling, Loose Boxes, Carriage House etc, Pleasure Grounds, Glass-houses and Park like Land” - at a yearly rental of £192. The house and gardens were valued by Thorowgood at £5,100. Though the additional farmland and tenements which comprised the wider estate brought the total valuation to £16,535. Once her mother’s affairs had been settled in March 1900, Anne Elizabeth Page Croft commissioned the firm of Gaudy & Bennison of 22 Essex Street, Strand, London to prepare general estimates for the complete rebuilding of Fanhams Hall. Their estimate for this work came to £25,000 which included: £7,000 for a “Kitchen and Office Block of Buildings”; £2,000 for a “Dairy, Bakery, Washing Shed (and) Game Larder”; £11,000 for a “Large Hall and Winter Garden, one storey high” and an additional £5,000 for making this “last Building two instead of one storey high”. For some reason Mrs. Croft decided not to employ Gaudy & Bennison to make the more detailed estimates for the quantities of building materials required - though she still retained their services. This led to misunderstandings as to payment, for Gaudy & Bennison charged their fee as a set percentage in addition to their estimate, while the new surveyor Charles E Longmore assumed that it was included in their total assessment.This meant that as late as 17th December 1901 Gaudy & Bennison were still writing rather tritely to Mrs Croft urging her to pay what they regarded as their original fee of £125! Mrs Croft chose Mr W Wood Bethell to act as her architect, and a local man, Mr Thomas Hunt, as her builder. Bethell’s design was in the Jacobean style and involved not only extensive alterations and additions for the structure of the property, but also its complete encasement with stone from the Stancliffe Estates Quarry at Darley Dale. Minute attention to detail is one of the hallmarks of Bethell’s style and he even drew up designs for the individual hinges, door latches and grates used in the building. Another example of this detail is to be seen in the mullioned and transomed windows which were produced in co-operation with the firm Messrs W. James & Co, of Kentish Town, London, who had developed a special line in strong lead cames. Most of the interior work - including the beautiful Italian walnut panelling with its inlaid mother-of-pearl in the lounge, the oak panelling in the Minstrel’s Gallery, the tiled fireplace in the Great Hall and the elaborate plaster ceilings (one of the best examples of which is to be seen in the Long Gallery) - are the work of Lawrence L. Turner. However, before the building work was complete another dispute arose. Due to the complication of Mrs Croft employing two different sets of surveyors, Thomas Hunt - the builder - was informed by Longmore that his fee arranged under the first estimate was to be reduced by the considerable sum of £950. Hunt protested that this broke the initial agreement between his solicitors, Messrs Curtis & Sons, and Mrs. Croft’s first surveyors Gaudy & Bennison. On the 21st November 1901 he wrote to Longmore claiming that his first agreement was to the best of his “knowledge and belief . . . thoroughly fair and just, and reasonable . . . and will bear thorough investigation . . . which we are quite prepared to substantiate”. In the end Mr T. W. Cutler of Bloomsbury in London was brought in to arbitrate. Through his mediation agreement does seem to have been reached, though Mrs Croft entrusted the later building work on the house to Messrs Foster & Dicksee of Rugby. Unfortunately none of the accounts of the latter have survived so we cannot assess their contribution to the finished house. As her new home gradually took shape during 1900 and 1901, Anne Elizabeth Croft turned her attention to the redevelopment and improvement of the gardens surrounding the house. As she was particularly interested in Japanese culture she enlisted a Mr. Inaka to draw up designs for a traditional Japanese Garden. There are in fact three different types of Japanese Garden which differ in their complexity and formal presentation, and Mr. Inaka, in consultation with his sponsor, decided to design a Shin Garden one of the most beautiful and delicate of these forms. His plans involved an elaborate and undulating landscape with hills, waterfalls and lakes, each physical feature having some intrinsic significance in its relationship to the others. Mr. Inaka called the garden Koraku en after a famous garden in Tokyo. The word Koraku recalls a Japanese saying which can be roughly translated as “Start worrying (or taking care) before others, and afterwards rejoice at the advantages of foresight!” Professor Suzuki and two professional Japanese gardeners were given responsibility for turning Mr. Inaka’s plans into reality. Each year before the first World War these gardeners came over from Japan and spent the summer months in a building known as the ‘Jap Cottage’ (now demolished), tending and expanding their creation. Much of their work can still be seen today. This includes the Japanese tea-house called the ‘House of the Pure Heart’ (Sei-shin-tei) which was sent over from Japan and erected in 1900; the ‘Fox Lake’ (Kitsune-ike) crossed by a ‘Spirit Bridge’ (Shin-Kyo); the mound known as Fuji-Yama (the soil for which was obtained from the large lake in the garden) and the ‘Small House’ which represents a Shinto shrine. Originally the garden was surrounded by a bamboo fence but this has since disappeared. In addition to the Japanese Garden various other improvements were made. The Queen Anne Garden was restocked, and numerous young lime trees planted in an attempt to improve the shape of the lime alleys. To add variety to the banks of the lake, Mrs. Croft purchased the Austrian House at the 1900 Paris Exhibition, and it represents an interesting example of Schonthaler & Son’s early prefabricated buildings. An Italian garden (up until 1999 was known as the Rose Garden) was planted by a well known firm of landscape gardeners in 1905. It is rather pleasant to note that the original choice of rose - Paul’s Scarlet Climber - was retained when modern cultivars replaced the older and worn out plants in the 1960s. Once the house was completed Mrs. Croft spent much money and care on furnishing it with beautiful things. It was through her express instructions that the vast number of Dutch tiles depicting ships, landscapes, flower baskets and children’s games were incorporated into the new house. The tiles still to be seen around the Long Gallery fire-place are particularly interesting, and an expert Mr. Charles Duit, has dated these to the early seventeenth century. One (unconfirmed) theory is that they were brought to this country as ballast in merchant ships. Mrs. Croft also showed particular interest in the Arts and Crafts movement and she purchased a number of items from the firm of Morris & Co which included a beautiful stained glass window and an intricately decorated set of tapestry curtains which used to hang in the Long Gallery. In 1907 she also bought a series of curtains, the work of the Royal School of Art Needlework, which when viewed together in the Great Hall represented a continuous scene in the Trossachs in Perthshire. All eight of the Croft’s children - two sons (Richard Page and Henry Page) and six daughters (Joyce Margaret Page, Maud Elizabeth, Anne Page, Helen Charlotte, Violet Mary and Susannah Grace) - were all brought up at Fanhams. Their father, Richard Benyon Croft died on the 28th January 1912, but their mother continued in residence until her death on 6th October 1912. The estate then passed on to her second son Henry Page Croft. Henry was educated at Eton and Cambridge where he gained quite a reputation as an oarsman winning the Thames Cup at Henley in 1902 and 1903. After finishing his education he entered his father’s firm as a partner and took over the presidency of the Ware Tariff Reform League. He married Miss Nancy Borwick, daughter of Sir Robert Borwick, of Berkeley Square, London on 10th July 1907. A few years later he entered Parliament as a Conservative pursuing an active career which culminated in him being created the first Lord Croft. The history of Fanhams during the 1930s and 1940s, however, is not associated with Lord Croft but with his third sister, Anne Page Croft. She married Charles Alexander Nall-Cain, 1st Baron Brocket, and lived for a number of years at his ancestral home, Brocket Hall at Welwyn. Though quite entitled to remain in residence in Welwyn, Anne determined to return to her roots at Fanhams Hall where she remained until her death on 18th October 1949 (her brother Lord Croft having died two years earlier in 1947). Anne inherited her mother’s passion for the gardens at Fanhams Hall and took great pleasure in opening them to the public during certain days in the summer so that all could enjoy their beauty. On Lady Brocket’s death the days of Fanhams Hall as a private family residence effectively ended as well. By this time the cost of maintaining a building of this size was beyond the means of all except the most wealthy, so Anne’s heir Major R A Page Croft, decided to sell the property and auction its contents. The Westminster Bank (as it was then) purchased the building, while its valuable contents - the accumulation of a number of centuries - were sold by auction on 2nd October 1950. The Westminster Bank turned Fanhams into a training centre for its staff, and during the 1960s carried out a number of alterations to the building, the chief of which was to demolish the old stables, harness room and loose boxes in 1965 in order to build a two storey accommodation block on the site. Six years later, in 1971, Fanhams was bought by the Buildings Societies Association. They in turn sold it to J Sainsbury PLC in February of 1986.
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