Kingston Maurward History

The house was originally built in the early 1700s for the Prime Minister’s cousin George Pitt and his wife Laura Grey, whose family had owned the estate for many generations - living in the nearby Elizabethan Manor House.
 
Thomas Hardy was a frequent visitor as a boy and later referred to Kingston Maurward House as ‘Knapwater House’ in his novel Desperate Remedies.
 
During the Second World War the Georgian house was occupied by American servicemen and the extensive parkland was used as a fuel depot for the D Day landings.