The last private owner, Isabel Andrews, whose husband had bought the estate in 1901, died in 1935 and it stood empty until September 1939, when it was purchased by the National Union of Teachers, who had moved out of London to avoid air raids. The NUT staff both lived and worked in the building. Following Dunkirk a tented encampment was erected in the grounds and temporarily occupied by men evacuated from the beaches. They were later followed by units of the British Army. In 1942 the Pioneer Corps built a more permanent hutted encampment, which was occupied by units of the United States Army from October 1942. In August 1943 the NUT moved back to London and the US Army took over the house as well. After the war the Congregation of Christian Brothers rented the property and in 1948 the NUT sold it to them. In the late 1970s, it was converted into an international boarding school, Toddington Manor College. In 2004, following the school's closure, planning permission to convert it into a hotel was denied after the scheme had attracted considerable local opposition.
