Fairford Park is a 4,200-acre (1,700 ha) estate in the southern Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England, close to the small town of Fairford.
Purchased by philanthropist Ernest Cook from the Barker family in 1945, the former stables and coach house of Fairford Park House are used as the headquarters of the Ernest Cook Trust, which now owns the estate. At the time of its sale, the estate occupied about 2,500 acres (1,000 ha), but it has since been added to by the purchase of surrounding farms: Court Farm in 1966, Hooks Farm at Southrop Airfield in 1967, Homeleaze Farm in 1975, and Donkeywell Farm in 1982.[1]
The estate comprises five let farms, mainly arable with some grazing along the valley of the River Coln, and about 260 acres (110 ha) of woodland. During the Second World War, the 17th-century Fairford Park House was used as an American military hospital, and until 1959 Polish refugees were housed in a camp in the park.[1] The manor house was demolished in the 1950s, and its site is now occupied by Farmor's Comprehensive School.
- ^ a b The Trusts's Estates in Gloucestershire, Ernest Cook Trust, archived from the original on 15 April 2011, retrieved 7 January 2009