Lord Egerton Castle-1938
Lord Egerton Castle is located in Njoro, approximately 30 minutes drive from Nakuru, Kenya’s 4th largest city. The mansion with fascinating architecture and surrounded by numerous shrubs, canopy trees, and lush lawns was built by Lord Egerton between 1938 and 1952.
The story of this castle is one of both love and hate. Lord Maurice Egerton was born in 1874 into the Barons of Egerton, a royal family. Egerton had two siblings that later died, which left him as the sole heir of the family’s vast empire. He was employed in the Royal Navy until 1920 when he became the fourth baron of Egerton- following the demise of his father.
His love for travel enabled him to visit various African countries, and he eventually settled in Kenya to concentrate on large-scale agriculture. After purchasing 21,116 acres of land from the Lord Delamere family, he was of age and needed to marry a girl of the same status that royal lineage demanded.
Maurice Egerton fell in love with a young woman from Queen Elizabeth’s lineage and built a four roomed cottage to impress her. He invited her to come over and see the cottage, but to his disbelief, she wasn’t impressed with the house and called it a ‘bird’s nest’. Lord Egerton then decided to build a bigger house, a castle that epitomized his royal status. This time around, he was convinced the girl of his dreams would change her mind and reciprocate his love.
To ensure that his new castle was luxurious and top notch, he hired Albert Brown, an English architect, to implement the fancy design in 1938. The house was built by construction workers from Italy, as well as over 100 Red Indian laborers. Unfortunately, the woman he loved once again rejected the castle for its small size and referred to it as a ‘dog kernel’.
Heartbroken, Lord Egerton carried on with the construction while the love of his life married a wealthy British Lord in Australia. He gradually added more floors, blocks, rooms, alleyways, confinements, and barricades to the castle. Upon completion, the mega structure was breathtaking and shared the Neuro-classical mansion designs associated with powerful and famous English families.
Because of his stature, Lord Egerton felt humiliated by the woman who rejected him. For this reason, he forbade women to never set foot on the property. He even pinned notices on trees warning women of dire consequences if they came close to his large agricultural plantations.
The Lord Egerton Castle is no doubt an architectural masterpiece whose materials were all imported from abroad. Interior decorations came from China, fireplace marbles were imported from Italy, zinc tiles were imported, and the walls and stairways were covered using British oak.
The castle has a total of 52 rooms that consist of a guest lounge, library, kitchen, reading room, entertainment room, guesthouses, several bathrooms, and a dark room he used for photography- one of his passions.
The largest marvel of the property is the giant organ player. Standing the height of almost two storeys, it is complete with 411 massive sound pipes and a cabinet. Lord Egerton would invite a player from England thrice a year to come and play his favorite ballads for him.
Today, the castle is owned by Egerton University, a Kenyan public university, and attracts a huge number of visitors including women. Lord Egerton had threatened to kill any woman who comes to his property in a hail of bullets. Maurice Egerton, the last Baron of Egerton of Tatton died in 1958, ending the ban for women tourists to visit the castle that represents a sad love story.
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