Building record 0104100000 - THE ABBEY, ASTON ABBOTTS

Dimensions - Length 30m, Width 12m.
Grade II. Large house. Late C18, altered early C19, possibly with an earlier core. Render, hipped slate roofs, brick chimneys. Parapet, first floor band course, irregular lengths of upper band courses and sill courses 2 storeys, S. front of 11 bays. 3 central bays are slightly projecting with dentilled base to parapet, barred sash windows to first floor, and round-headed similar sashes in slight arched recesses to ground floor. Impost band between arches. Similar arched windows in bay to right of central section and between outer left-hand bays 2 bays to left of centre have barred sashes flanking French doors, all under moulded pediment. Remainder has barred sashes, the outer pairs of bays slightly projecting and lower. N. front is irregular with front door in central canted projection, and service wing projecting to right. Late C19 block at N. end of service wing has shaped gable with diaper brick patterns and roundel (B8).
Aston House was a country seat of the Abbots of St Albans. Now a good commodious house of brick, stuccoed (B3, 1862).
Is on Sir Wlm Stanhope's estate (c.1750)(B1).
NGR to house.
During WW2 the Abbey was requisitioned for President Beneš for the Czech government in exile, from mid-November 1940 to October 1945. A bodyguard of Czech soldiers were housed in two Nissen huts in the grounds (B11).