TV star all set to demolish mansion and replace it with new one

ACTOR James Corden is finally set to demolish his home near Henley and replace it with a new one.

Corden, 46, who has three children with his wife Julia Carey, bought the C-shaped property off Wargrave Road in December 2020 for £8.5 million, about £2 million above the asking price.

The house was built in the Sixties in Art Deco style, with grounds that feature a tennis court and a listed Druidic stone circle known as the Mont de la Ville dolmen, which was transferred from St Helier to the estate by Henry Seymour Conway, the governor of Jersey, in 1788.

Corden’s agents, Atlantic Swiss Agency, won approval from Wokingham Borough Council to demolish the building and pool house and replace it with a traditional mansion, walled garden and associated landscaping in January 2023. Construction details for the new building have now been approved by the council, which relate to the protection of animals and trees and flood mitigation.

The project had initially involved the creation of a new separate pool house to replace the existing swimming facilities. But this was removed after an objection from English Heritage, which raised concerns about the proximity of the pool house to the listed stone circle.

Corden, who starred in the finale of Gavin & Stacey, which aired on Christmas Day, had lived in Los Angeles since 2015 in order to host The Late Show on the US television network CBS. He wanted to return to the UK after stepping down in 2023.

Videos also appeared online of the UK property after trespassers shot footage showing boarded-up windows and overgrown gardens. The land was once part of the adjacent Park Place estate, now owned by Russian exile Andrey Borodin, and is one of several plots sold off by the Noble family, who owned Harpsden Court, in 1947.

The Cordens’ property will replace a mansion which dated back to the 1860s. A postcard in a heritage impact assessment by HCUK shows what the mansion looked like in 1907.