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Original Text (Annotation: EPW021928 / 951009)
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"Gobions Wood".
In 1777 the estate was sold by the Freemans to John Hunter, it in turn passing in 1802 to his great-nephew Thomas Holmes, who changed his name to Hunter. Little is known of the development of the landscape at this time. By 1815 (sale plan, Hertfordshire Record Office) the parkland north and east of Gobions Wood had been landscaped, and the serpentine Gobbins Pond had been laid out close to the house and garden.
In 1836 Robert William Gaussen (died 1880) of Brookmans Park, a director and Governor of the Bank of England, bought Gobions (to which the name had reverted in the late 18th/early 19th century), combining the two estates and pulling down Gobions House around 1838. Gaussen carried out planting in the area of woodland west of Bridgeman's work, which became increasingly neglected. In 1923 the Gaussen family sold the Brookmans and Gobions estates to developers, and houses were built along the north and east boundaries of the Gobions parkland. The remaining Gobions land, approximately one third of which is in public ownership and open to the public, is now (1999) in divided ownership.
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