Moor Green House and Belgian Refugees
MOSELEY LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY
MOOR GREEN HOUSE
Moor Green House stood in a thirteen-acre estate enclosed by the current Moor Green Lane and Yew Tree Road. The original Moor Green House was occupied from 1868 by Mr Thomas Clemont Sneyd Kynnersley (b. 1803), a lawyer, Stipendiary Magistrate in Birmingham, JP for Warwickshire, Deputy Lieutenant for Warwickshire, JP for Worcestershire and Staffordshire, Deputy Chairman of Warwickshire Quarter Sessions and Recorder of Newcastleunder-Lyme. TC Sneyd- Kynnersley was interested in Reformatories, Industrial Schools and Prisoners’ Aid Societies. The house and land were bought by Sir John Holder of nearby Pitmaston. In 1899 he gave it to his son, Mr Henry C Holder, who built a new Moor Green House. Henry Holder carried out considerable demolition work and his new residence cost £8,000. It was approached by a long carriage drive from Moor Green Lane and had an ornamental lodge, tastefully laid out grounds and gardens, COMMUNITY
24
an extensive walled garden, a peach house, several greenhouses, motor houses to accommodate the then ‘new-fangled’ petrol engine vehicles and a 6-tie cow house, fodder store and calf pen. Henry Holder lived there briefly with his wife Evelyne and their three daughters and one son and eight staff, including a cook, four maids, a nurse and governess. Sir Henry Holder died on 3 August 1945. As a private residence, Moor Green House was little used, and it acted as a hostel for Belgian refugees, including Rev. Father G. Veracx, during the First World War. It later became a military hospital, as an annexe to Highbury, and was designated the 4th Auxiliary Hospital, Moseley. After that the house once again became vacant. After the Great War, Moor Green House was purchased by the Britannic Assurance Company at an auction sale at the Grand Hotel on 13 May 1920, and the house and grounds were adapted to serve as a centre for recreational activity. Bathrooms and www.moseleyb13.com
