The House that helped win the war

Dozens of German generals imprisoned in the unlikely five-star splendour of an English stately home, blithely unaware that their every wartime conversation was being recorded. Beneath them, an army of Jewish refugees listening in as tongues were loosened by fine food and wine, passing the Nazis’ after-dinner secrets to British Intelligence.

You couldn’t make up this audacious sting, which shortened World War II by years and helped secure an Allied victory. Especially the part about the generals not only being hosted at a level that raised Churchill’s eyebrows, but taken on excursions to Simpsons in the Strand and other bastions of London high life. Yet this is the remarkable true story of Trent Park House, the former home of Sir Philip Sassoon, the Jewish socialite who did his bit for the war effort as an MP and Under-Secretary of State for Air, but never lived to see how his Enfield home would do even more after his death.

Now, for the first time, this exquisite country pile has opened to the public as one of Britain’s most fascinating museums. It is a tale of two halves. A multi-million-pound restoration has returned the grand public rooms, along with much of the furniture, artwork, lamps and 18th-century treasures that made the house Sassoon inherited from his parents in 1912 his home until his death in 1939. But it is an Upstairs, Downstairs story, because what happened in the basement after Sassoon died and the house was requisitioned by the War Department is every bit as compelling as the spectacular salons where aristocracy and giants of the political and entertainment worlds once partied.

One feature which is not original is the secret door concealed within one of Sir Philip’s library bookcases at the end of the vast run of state rooms. Beyond it, in what was once the MP’s bedroom and later became a military office, is a spectacular model of the house showing where the generals – 84 of them, along with another 22 German POW officers – slept, dined and caroused in gardens where even the trees, rose bushes and benches were bugged, as were the lighting fixtures, walls, skirting boards and even the billiards table inside the house.

The extraordinarily detailed surveillance operation was masterminded by Lt Col Thomas Kendrick, but it was Captain Catherine Townshend who set it up, recruiting dozens of Jewish refugees – the most readily available source of German-speaking volunteers willing to spy on the enemy intent on destroying their families. In the new museum, two of those listeners tell their stories in their own words, while comedienne Helen Lederer, a trustee of the Trent Park Museum Trust, narrates the experiences of her grandfather Ernst.

Museum director Dr Giuseppe Albano adds fascinating detail not found on the information panels as he leads me into the cavernous wine cellar once used by Sassoon to entertain everyone who was anyone in pre-war Britain, from Noël Coward and Charlie Chaplin to the Royal Family. Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret even came to play before they reached drinking age.

“The prisoners were also served fine wine with their meals, as it was thought it would loosen their lips,” says Dr Albano, explaining why Churchill raised his eyebrows at the cost of hosting POWs on such a lavish scale.

They were further lulled by excursions outside the house – a move that beggars belief given they were locked up every night.

“They were so sure Hitler was going to win the war that they were relaxed and enjoying themselves, convinced their captors would soon become their captives,” he says.

There was even a fake aristocrat installed to play mine host. The so-called Lord Aberfaldy was actually Ian Munroe, a former bank clerk with amateur acting credentials. It was all part of the elaborate deception, as was the presence of Ernst Lederer, who mingled affably with the officers when not secretly listening to their conversations below stairs. The Germans had no idea the friendly old soldier was actually a Czech-Jewish refugee.

The intelligence gathered was extraordinary. It enabled Britain to bomb the factory where the prisoners revealed V2 rockets were being developed, uncover how the Wehrmacht communicated and, distressingly for the Jewish listeners in the basement, exposed officers’ knowledge of the concentration camps and the atrocities being committed within them.

If it seems shameful that British intelligence failed to pass details of these conversations to the Nuremberg prosecutors, historian Dr Helen Fry, who spent 25 years researching the operation for her book The Walls Have Ears, says the silence was justified.

“An even more dangerous Cold War had started, and British intelligence thought they might one day need to listen in to the Russians.”

Almost as fascinating as the wartime drama is the mystery of how the contents of Trent Park House survived for nearly 90 years after Sassoon’s death. The answer lies with relatives who owned even grander houses. Sassoon left most of his furniture and possessions to his sister Sybil, who married the Marquess of Cholmondeley. Their grandson is now chairman of the Trust that has restored the house and created the new museum.

“They had enough room to keep everything at Houghton Hall, their base in Norfolk,” says Dr Albano, describing what must surely rank as Britain’s grandest storage facility.

Trent Park House of Secrets is now open to the public.