of country house building costs in the Victorian period; it is an extremely modest sum in comparison with the vast cost of Westonbirt House (also designed by Vulliamy) whose construction for Robert Stayner Holford (Robert Blagden Hale's brother-in-law) began after the completion of the redesigned Alderley House. After Robert Blagden Hale Robert Blagden Hale had married Anne Jane Holford in 1832 and they had five children. Their sons were Robert Hale (1834–1907) who later became a Major-General in the British military and Mathew Holford Hale (1835–1912) who became a colonel. Their daughters were Anne Hale (1833–1912), Georgina Hale (1836–1934) and Theodosia Hale (1838–1922). Of the five children only one (Anne) married and the other four lived at Alderley House for most of their lives. Anne, the eldest daughter, married Thomas Henry Sherwood in 1859. When Robert Blagden Hale died in 1883 the eldest son Major-General Robert Hale inherited Alderley House and the two unmarried sisters Georgina and Theodosia, lived with him. These living arrangements are mentioned by the artist A.S. Hartrick in his memoirs. When Major –General Robert Hale died in 1907 his younger brother Mathew inherited Alderley House. Mathew died in January 1912 and Anne Sherwood, his sister, then inherited. According to the terms of the will of their father Robert Blagden Hale she legally added the name Hale to her surname so that she became Anne Sherwood-Hale in August 1912. Unfortunately she died the following month in September 1912. Her eldest son Thomas Edward Sherwood-Hale then inherited Alderley House. Thomas Edward Sherwood-Hale JP MBE (1861–1945) lived much of his life in New Zealand. After World War I, he moved into the house for a few years, but after that he resided at the nearby Mount House. which was also owned by the Hale family. In about 1925 Alderley House was let to a Major Lionel Wynne-Wilson who ran it as a crammer. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the house was again empty and Rose Hill School was evacuated to it from Banstead in Surrey. It was in the same year that the late 10th century will of Æthelgifu (see History of Hertfordshire) was discovered by James Fairhurst among material in one of the outbuildings. This document formed part of the literary effects of Lord John Selden (1584–1654), of whose estate Sir Matthew Hale was both one of the executors and one of the beneficiaries,