It was Cowbridge House, lately the residence of Sir Philip Hunloke who had been Master of King George V's yacht. It was a large rambling mansion on the River Avon, so industrial water was available, and had 14 acres of grounds, a mill with its own water powered generator, and six cottages. There was a factory in Malmesbury employing about 60 women, weaving shirting material, so there might at least be a nucleus of industrial labour available.
Without hesitation I bought the place, lock stock and barrel for £6,500, called off the search and returned to Benfleet where we had been living since our return from Belgium in 1937. The next day, war was declared. In the general confusion of evacuation and the fear of air raids, I was afraid that, being unoccupied, Cowbridge was easy meat for any local authority, school or similar body to requisition or occupy. I managed to locate one of my staff in Brighton, John Stoodley, and had him drive over to Malmesbury and camp out in the mansion while I got a protection order from the Air Ministry and could move over myself on a permanent basis. He had no trouble in keeping possession of the place, and two or three days later when we had put our things into storage we left our home in Benfleet and moved to a furnished cottage in Malmesbury, providentially available for immediate occupation.
Cowbridge House, on closer examination, certainly turned out to be an excellent choice. Its already large rooms would lend themselves to further enlargement by removing inner walls, and there was a profusion of outbuildings of great potential value as workshops, stores etc. There was a well stocked kitchen garden and three large greenhouses with luscious peaches and grapes. (Throughout the war grapes and peaches in season were sold in the canteen to employees, and fresh lettuce salads were served throughout the year from intensive use of the greenhouses, an important factor in keeping up spirits and a kind of family atmosphere during the hard times to come.)
The house itself was not exactly an architectural masterpiece, having been built in the nineteenth century in a "Neo Baronial" style - plenty of crenelations and carved stone work - much of it decaying because, as I later learned the mason had laid the stones wrongly in relation to its original posture in the quarry.
I retained the services of a local builder, and for some six or eight weeks, we gutted walls, propped up ceilings with girders, and by Christmas, although I still had no clear knowledge of what we were to produce, we had available, four or five large rooms equipped with benches all wired up for radio assembly. A new power main was connected to the local grid giving us two feeders in case of supply interruption. The generator in the water mill was put in order, for emergency lighting - (which was never needed).
A small machine shop was equipped with a range of minor production plant such as presses, capstan lathes and drills, a large boiler was connected up to the heating system, extra lavatories installed and a kitchen and small canteen capable of catering for about 200 people were fitted into what had been the butler's pantry, kitchen and adjoining billiard room. The paneling from the dining and drawing rooms was stored in a stable, as were the old Dutch and Spanish tiles which were well worth saving (they had disappeared by the end of the war but I still have a range of oak bookshelves which I had made from one of the large oak panels).
