History of Newbold House

Newbold’s history dates back to 1893 when the house was designed and built (over several years) for the Woodcock family. Colonel Woodcock was a retired Officer who had served in India and subsequently made his fortune trading tea. Settling here with his wife, they were apparently much in absence and the House and Gardens were kept by a large team of servants, including 8 full-time gardeners, who tended the 7 acres that comprise the estate. The Woodcocks were childless and, in time, sold the house to a Mr. Sommerville, who worked for the P&O shipping company. Mr. Sommerville and his wife also had no children and when the House was requisitioned during World War II, Mrs. Sommerville had another house - 'Kedah' - built further down St. Leonard’s Rd. After the war the House fell empty for some while until it was acquired in 1959 by Mr. Donaldson, a retired policeman from Keith who bought the property for £3,000 (the same as the original building cost!). The House became a Hotel and the billiard room (now the Art Room) was converted into a bar.

In the 70s the hotel fell on hard times and in 1979 the Findhorn Foundation, situated closeby, began renting it as an additional workshop space for their educational programmes. The plan was for the Foundation to use the workshop rooms in the summer and have the new resident caretaker group look after the property over the winter. By the end of 1979, the caretaker group felt sufficiently confident to take on the rental responsibility themselves, and in November that year they declared themselves an independent organisation. In 1982 a separate Charitable Trust was set up. The Donaldsons, who now lived at the Newbold Lodge house situated at the entrance to the overall property, had been the landlords until this point, but in the spring of 1982, they sold the House to the Trust for £85 000 – and the purchase was completed in May 1983.

The House began to run its economy according to a system of donations, which proved highly successful and offered a persuasive alternative to accepted business practices. Buoyed up by the generosity of its guests, NewBold was paid off within ten years and has been self-managed since under the guardianship of a group of Trustees, plus the management and operations skills of a resident team of core members.