MONEYHILL House was built in 1720 and became known High House to distinguish from Money Hill on the opposite side of road.

It housed at various times, Samuel Salter and, in 1881, Mrs Harriet Walker, patron of St Peter's Church.

It was said "to have been originally a dower house and Cardinal Wolsey himself had slept in it".

Although mainly Georgian it was said to have had an "attractive Elizabethan hall and fireplace and a good Jacobean staircase".

Another owner was William Plaistowe, who is quoted in partnership in Rickmansorth Bank, which failed in 1826.

Thomas Fellows brought up a family there and "trained in law and high-class cricket".

Other residents were: Hon Reginald Capel, son of Earl of Essex and director of the Great Northern Railway; and Thomas Andrews designer of the Titanic who went down with it in 1912.

Between 1912 and 1942 there is something of a gap.

York House School, founded in1910 in Hampstead, moved to Rickmansworth in 1939, because of parental fear of bombing.

It took over number 10 Cedars Avenue then spreading into number 12.

As the school grew, new premises were needed.

In September 1942, the owner of Cremore, a Mrs Phillips, gave the school three months to quit.

They frantically searched for somewhere else and Moneyhill House came to their notice.

The Ministry of Works granted a license for repairs necessary to enable the school to move in 1942.

In the 30-year gap in the history of the house up until 1942, it is known that it had been a nursing home then "it had been, for some time, run very unsuccessfully as a hotel by two elderly ladies who were in continuous trouble over their lack of black-out precautions and who kept. It was said, 23 cats".

The school moved in September 30, 1943. They did not have gas but this was supplied October 6.

York House School remained at Moneyhill House until 1966, during which time the pupil, who would become Sir John Sulstone, 2002 winner of the nobel prize for medicine, attended the school.

Essentially the roof became unsafe at Moneyhill House and the decision was made to move.

They looked at various places and moved to Redheath, another house that had faced the prospect of demolition.

MR PATRICK MOORE, headmaster of York House School, Redheath