Holwood House

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Holwood House is a country house in Keston, near Hayes, in the London Borough of Bromley in England. It was designed by Decimus Burton and built between 1823 and 1826. Holwood is a Grade I listed building, while its grounds, the Holwood Estate, are on the English Heritage register of historic parks and gardens. The house is currently privately owned.

Holwood House is on the site of an earlier building owned by William Pitt the Younger, and the grounds also contain the remains of an Iron Age fort known as "Caesar's Camp", which is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Pitt is thought to have caused these remains to be levelled to some extent, in order to landscape the estate's gardens.

[edit] Wilberforce's Oak

The grounds also contain a tree known as Wilberforce’s Oak, which is easily distinguished from the surrounding trees by the stone seat constructed in its shade. A Wilberforce diary entry in 1788 reads: "At length, I well remember after a conversation with Mr. Pitt in the open air at the root of an old tree at Holwood, just above the steep descent into the vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention to bring forward the abolition of the slave-trade".