Greenlands is a country house situated by the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

 in Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

, just outside Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, about 10 miles downstream and north-east from Reading, 10 miles upstream and west from Maidenhead...

. Built in the nineteenth century, it now forms the core of Greenlands Campus of the University of Reading

University of Reading

The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...

, and is used by their Henley Business School as the base for its MBA

Master of Business Administration

The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...

 and corporate learning offerings.

History

The present building was built on the site of a previous house which was owned in the seventeenth century by the D’Oyley family, descendants of the Norman Robert D'Oyly

Robert D'Oyly

Robert D'Oyly was a Norman nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror on the Norman Conquest, his invasion of England. He died in 1091.-Background:Robert was the son of Walter D'Oyly and elder brother to Nigel D'Oyly...

. In the early nineteenth century, the land was owned by Thomas Darby-Coventry and a house called Greenland Lodge was built.

The next owner, Edward Marjoribanks, enlarged the house but then sold it in 1868. It was bought by William Henry Smith, son of the founder of WH Smith. He further extended the building, though its appearance received a cool reception from Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the humorous travelogue Three Men in a Boat.Jerome was born in Caldmore, Walsall, England, and was brought up in poverty in London...

 who joked in Three Men in a Boat that it was ‘the rather uninteresting-looking river residence of my newsagent.’ On Smith’s death, his family was ennobled with the title of Viscount Hambleden

Viscount Hambleden

Viscount Hambleden, of Hambleden in the County of Buckinghamshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1891 for Emily Danvers Smith, in honour of her deceased husband, the businessman and Conservative politician William Henry Smith...

. Greenlands remained their home until immediately after the Second World War.

In 1946, the 3rd Viscount rented the building to the Administrative Staff College, an initiative designed to provide management education to British men and women in all sectors of the economy and government. The Smith family moved into the village of Hambleden

Hambleden

Hambleden is a small village and civil parish within Wycombe district in the south of Buckinghamshire, England. It is about four miles west of Marlow, and about three miles north east of Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire....

. Meanwhile, the Administrative Staff College opened its doors to course members in March 1948. In 1952, following the death of Viscount Hambleden, the house was bought by the College. The Administrative Staff College was renamed Henley Management College in 1991, when it received its Royal Charter. In 2008 it merged with the Business School of the University of Reading, to form the new Henley Business School.