at the stables. Walter assumed the title of 2nd Lord Rothschild of Tring in 1915. Three years later, after the end of World War I, the family donated the house's lily pond and immediate grounds to the townspeople of Tring and it became the Memorial Gardens. Once it became evident that Walter would not marry, Lady Rothschild sold her dower house, Champneys near Wigginton (a little over 1 mile/1.7 km east of Tring Park Mansion), in 1923. Walter lived with his mother for the rest of her life and after living at Tring for more than sixty years, Lady Rothschild died peacefully on 8 January 1935 aged 91. Under the terms of his father's will, Walter was now obliged to move out of Tring Park and the house and estate now passed to his brother Charles's branch of the family. Just two years later the 2nd Baron Rothschild of Tring died in his sleep on 27 August 1937 and the following year Victor, Charles's son – now the 3rd Lord – offered the museum and its collections to the British Museum. Walter's private museum now became part of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. The final dissolution of the Tring Park estate came in October 1938 when the estate was broken up and sold piecemeal. It consisted of eleven farms, numerous smallholdings, allotments, cottages and shops in Tring, Aston Clinton, Bucklands, Drayton Beauchamp, Cholesbury, Wigginton, Marsworth and Long Marston as well as the stud farm in Akeman Street. During World War II the house was used by the N M Rothschild & Sons bank, as a repository for the safe-keeping of documents and valuables outside London. The Tring Home Guard also used the park grounds for exercises and training. After the end of the war, the bank had no further use for the house and the new Lord Rothschild had no desire to reinstate the estate. The mansion was leased by the Prudential Assurance Company and in 1945 was leased and subsequently purchased by the Cone-Ripman School which, in turn, became the Arts Educational School, Tring Park, which became the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts. In 1975 the A41 Tring Bypass was opened, splitting the former parklands in two. See also Rothschild properties in England References External links History of the Mansion, from Tring Park School for the Performing Arts Country houses in Hertfordshire Second Empire architecture