Historical Photographs of Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire return to previous page Breakspear House, Harefield 1870 Originally a Tudor building dating from the early seventeeth century. Nicholas Breakspear is believed to have lived at an earlier house on this site when he was Pope Adrian IV, between 1154 and 1159. W.S. Gilbert wrote "The Yeomen of the Guard" at the house when he lived there in the late 1880's. This photograph taken by Jabez Croft in 1870 is probably the earliest photograph of this building. Published by Norman Lucey e-mail: norman@lucey.net © Copyright 2022, Norman Lucey. All rights reserved.