Plans are still in the works for TV celebrity James Corden’s brand new home in Berkshire.
Mr Corden has been eyeing a move to Berkshire for years after leaving The Late Late Show in April 2023, which was broadcast from studios in Los Angeles, USA.
He purchased Templecombe House in Wargrave near Henley for approximately £8.5 million in December 2020.
The dream home appeared on the market in 2018, with glossy promotional photos from the time showing the house built in the 1960s with its unique Bauhaus style, a tennis court and covered swimming pool.
But urban explorer YouTube channels exposed the house in a dilapidated state in videos uploaded in 2022.
In one of the videos, a swastika was seen spray-painted onto the wall of the poolhouse, which appears to have been removed in more recent urban explorer videos.
Three years ago, agents acting on Mr Corden’s behalf won permission to demolish Templecombe House and replace it with a new purpose-built home from Wokingham Borough Council, the planning authority for Wargrave.
The project is still making its way through the planning process.
The latest news in planning terms is that the project team is seeking consent for its conservation management strategy, which was a condition of the approval of the project in January 2023.
The strategy has been devised to conserve the habitat of the site, as the house comes with 43 acres of land, and the preservation of the ‘druidic circle’ in the grounds.
The ‘druid temple stones’ called the Mont de la Ville dolmens were brought over from Jersey island in 1788 by the former owner of the Park Place estate.
The conservation strategy by Brindle & Green states: “The proposals seek to preserve the parkland setting of the Grade II listed Druid’s Temple (a collection of 45 megalithic stones) positioned to the southwest of the redline boundary. The Local Planning Authority specifically requested that the setting, and the associated sight lines of the Druid Temple, were not altered as a result of the planning application, as such the feature remains unaffected by the proposals.”
The strategy does propose the removal of a dead sequoia tree, which would be replaced with a suitable alternative parkland tree.
Three conservation strategy documents were submitted in May and November last year, with the latest strategy quoted in this article being submitted last month.
This strategy is being considered by Wokingham council’s planning department, which will either approve or reject it.
You can view the application by typing reference 251123 into the council’s planning portal.
The project originally involved building a replacement pool house near the druid stones, but this feature was removed from the plan following objections from Historic England.
