Hall, which included the addition of a splendid hunting frieze, the decorated ceiling and a new external door. He also added lodges to the main gates. The 18th Baron also made significant changes to the landscape, the most dramatic being the addition of a long, majestic crescent of Wellingtonia (also known as Giant Sequoias or Sierra Redwoods) between the Upper bridge and the south-eastern gate. Since then, the history of the estate over the last 150 years has been a chequered one. Compton Verney suffered in the agricultural depression of the 1870s and 1880s, in common with other landed estates across the country, as they were dependent on agricultural rent for income. The house was let out from 1887 to 1902 due to this. 20th century The last Verney to live in the mansion was Richard Greville Verney (1869-1923), 19th Baron Willoughby de Broke, whose nostalgic memoir, The Passing Years, offers a sentimental description of life in the house before he was obliged to sell it in 1921. He died two years later, in 1923. During the next 70 years the estate changed hands a number of times. The new owner in 1921 was Joseph Watson (1873-13 March 1922), of Linton Spring near Wetherby in Yorkshire, a soap manufacturer at Leeds. Having merged the core part of his business into what became Unilever and sold his holding, he retired relatively young in his 40s intending to devote the rest of his life to horse-racing, fox-hunting and the life of a country gentleman, whilst also redirecting his business acumen into pioneering industrial agriculture on other estates he had acquired with his proceeds, namely at nearby Offchurch, at Selby in Yorkshire and at Orford in Suffolk. He purchased the famous racehorse training estate of Manton in Wiltshire, and in 1921 had already produced horses which won The Oaks, the Grand Prix de Paris (the world's highest prize-money) and a 3rd place in The Derby, for which the racing press called him "Mr Lucky Watson". In 1922, he was made The 1st Baron Manton, of Compton Verney in the County of Warwick, for his wartime services in manufacturing munitions at Barnbow near Leeds; however, just a few months later, he died from a heart attack following a fall whilst out hunting with the Warwickshire Foxhounds near his new seat. Lord Manton was buried at his nearby manor of Offchurch, where he was living