Weddings at Park Inn

The Park Inn Hotel in Thurrock is the perfect setting for weddings, conferences, and leisure breaks. Close to the Dartford and Lakeside shopping centres, this beautifully converted Georgian Manor is set in six acres of landscaped gardens. The hotel retains much of its original charm even as it offers all amenities and comforts expected of a modern hotel. Now a popular wedding location with landscaped gardens. Like most old country houses, Stifford Lodge, the most recent name of the property before it became a hotel, has undergone many renovations and alterations over the years.
There was a house on the site as early as 1327, when it was owned by Henry de Shirewell and was probably of timber frame construction. This medieval house seems to have been substantially rebuilt in brick, probably by the Kingsman family in the mid-18th century. When the trustees of Jasper and Ann Kingsman sold it to John Button in 1789, it was described as a "capital mansion house with all requisite offices, gardens and meadow land."
After John Button's death in 1806, his son who was also called John and was presumably responsible for the early 19th century additions to the house occupied Stifford Lodge. When John's wife died in 1830, he assumed her surname Freeman and lived at the lodge until his death in 1853, at the age of 82. John Freeman's daughter Elizabeth Frances inherited and retained the property until her death in 1868. The house then passed to her daughters who sold it to Mr. Edmund W. Brooks in 1901.
Between 1860 and 1901 the owners were not residents of the house, which had been let to a series of tenants, including, Arthur Wild, William Phillip Beech, George H. Frank, William Fitzgerald Scott and Herbert Edmund Brooks. Herbert Brooks was prominent in local politics and was chairman of Essex County Council and the library fittings at the lodge are from his time. Herbert Brooks died in 1931 and his widow remained in residence until 1933. The Crossley family then occupied the house until 1939 when it was taken over by the War Department and became a Canadian military hospital. Temporary huts were erected for use as wards and German prisoners dismantled these at the end of the war.
After the war, Colonel Sherwood who was the head of Sherwood Paints and was regarded as Stifford’s last Squire purchased the house. He spent a good deal of time in Barbados and died there in 1966. The house became a hotel after his death.