IN THE nineteenth century, a house was built in Melbourne Road, Bushey, that the locals nicknamed "the Bavarian castle". It was unlike any other house in the town, built in the Romanesque revival style in white limestone and red sandstone, with two turreted towers and a grand entrance arch.

This was the home of German-born British artist Hubert von Herkomer. In early 1886, he painted the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson in exchange for a home design he could bring back to England with him. Richardson had his own style of architecture named after him, Richardsonian Romanesque, the most famous example of which is Trinity Church in Boston. Richardson sketched a single picture of a four storey Romanesque castle. From this sketch, von Herkomer commissioned the house.

It was a lavish building. The rooms were in the German Gothic style, extravagantly decorated with elaborate wood carvings. The master bedroom had a copper ceiling and wood carved walls covered entirely with gold leaf. The drawing room came complete with a music gallery, and the hall and staircase were lined with panels of redwood 30 feet high. The house was built to a very high technical standard for its time, with electricity from its own generator and hot and cold water. Von Herkomer named the house Lululand, after his deceased wife Lulu, who died from a heart attack in 1885.

The house was completed in 1894, and von Herkomer lived there until his death twenty years later.

He was a very successful artist. He began his art training in Southampton, before entering a more serious course of study at the South Kensington Schools. He

exhibited his work for the first time at the Royal Academy at just 20 years old. He sold his first picture for two guineas, but by the time he was 24 he was selling pictures for £500.

His skills stretched across a wide variety of artistic mediums. He exhibited a large number of portraits, figure subjects and landscapes, in oil and watercolour. He achieved success as a worker in enamel, as an etcher, mezzotint engraver and illustrator. For a short time, he worked as an illustrator for the newly founded newspaper The Graphic. He also worked as Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford.

His talent was recognised many times over. King Otto of Bavaria

appointed him Knight of the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown. He was awarded the Pour le Merite for Arts by Kaiser Wilhelm II. And In 1907, he was knighted by King Edward VII.

Through the Herkomer School at Bushey, he also exercised wide influence upon art education.

In the grounds of Lululand, von Herkomer built a theatre where he staged productions ‘pictorial-music-plays’ that he partly wrote and designed

himself.

He later became a pioneer of

cinematography. The theatre was turned into a film studio and cinema. He directed and acted in several films that were released

commercially.

In 1915, his film studio was leased by the British Actors Film Company for use as their principal production base.

Despite being a prominent member of the Royal Academy of Arts and knowing being on familiar terms with the royal family, von Herkomer was never entirely accepted by the British establishment. He was a victim of the deteriorating relationship between Great Britain and Germany in the years before the Second World War.

Lululand was demolished in 1939 on the eve of the Second World WarWorld War II. It is highly possible that anti-German feeling – and the fear that the house was a elevated landmark and a navigational marker for enemy bombers – influenced the

decision.

The site of the house became the Royal British Legion until it was redevelopedment into

housing in 2014.

The rose garden, summerhouse, sunken garden and pergola were preserved and remain standing today as the public Bushey Rose Garden.