Luton Hoo
Luton Hoo is an English country house and estate near Luton in Bedfordshire and Harpenden in Hertfordshire. Most of the estate lies within the civil parish of Hyde, Bedfordshire. The Saxon word Hoo means the spur of a hill, and is more commonly associated with East Anglia. History Pre-1762 The manor of Luton Hoo is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, but a family called de Hoo occupied a manor house on the site for four centuries, until the death of Thomas Hoo, 1st Baron Hoo and Hastings in 1455. The manor passed from the de Hoo family to the Rotherham family and then the Napier family. Successive houses were built on the site. In 1751, Francis Herne, a Member of Parliament MP for Bedford, inherited the house from his kinswoman Miss Napier. Crichton-Stuart In 1763 Francis Herne sold the estate for £94,700 to John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. Following an unhappy period as Prime Minister from 1762 to 1763, Bute decided to concentrate his energies on his estate at Luton Hoo. The present house was built by the 3rd Earl of Bute to the designs of the neoclassical architect Robert Adam. Work commenced in 1767. The original plan