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News that Saga is to quit its corporate headquarters on the outskirts of Folkestone brought shock to the local community this week.
The decision to leave Sandgate has also thrown the fate of the firm’s historic Enbrook Park home into doubt. Reporter Rhys Griffiths explores its remarkable past, and looks at what the future may hold…
“I don’t think there’s anybody in Sandgate who doesn’t know Enbrook Park!”
It has not taken long for the suggestion that this 27-acre wooded hillside, nestled at the edge of the seaside village of Sandgate, deserves the status of hidden gem to raise a quizzical eyebrow.
Tim Prater, chairman of the parish council, appears almost incredulous at the idea of it flying under the radar – especially as he is insistent it is the best park in the whole of the district.
But there are surely people from further afield – or even the neighbouring towns of Folkestone and Hythe – who do not know about this special spot, sitting just north of the main road through the village, in the valley which runs northward towards Cheriton.
Hidden gem or not, the home of over-50s travel and insurance giant Saga is set to become the centre of intense interest after it was announced the firm is to close its headquarters which looms over the park and village beyond.
The company already has “prior approval” to turn the main building into 60 flats – but any plans to remove access to the park would see Cllr Prater “chaining myself to a tree”.
“The majority of the site is open to the public and it’s really well used locally, and to be fair Saga have encouraged that use as well,” the Lib Dem explained over coffee at his office in the centre of the village.
“So it’s really well maintained, lots of open grassland, lots of wooded areas, you can walk down by the stream and up through.
“It’s a really attractive site. It’s probably one of the best parks in the district and that’s to Saga’s credit that they’ve had it open in that way since they built their HQ there some 20 years ago.”
Designed by the architects Michael Hopkins & Partners and opened at the turn of the century, Saga’s glass-and-steel headquarters is now a well-established local landmark.
The history of the wider Enbrook Park site, however, stretches back much further.
Originally forming part of Coolinge Farm in the 1700s, it was purchased by John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley, in 1806 as a seaside retreat from his main home at Cobham in the north of the county.
Enbrook would remain in the family for more than a century, and during the period 1853-5 the renowned Gothic Revival architect Samuel Sanders Teulon would oversee the construction of Enbrook House.
Following the death of Bligh’s ancestor, the Countess of Chichester, in 1911 the property found its way to market, and following the First World War it was eventually purchased by the Red Cross.
A Royal Star and Garter home for wounded veterans of the Great War was then established at Enbrook Park in 1919 while work was being carried out on the main home at Richmond.
It became known as ‘the Seaside Branch’ and 70 residents were temporarily accommodated there until the Richmond property finally welcomed residents back from Sandgate in 1924.
Enbrook House, rebuilt to designs of Sir Edwin Cooper in a Cape Colonial style during the 1920s, subsequently provided permanent accommodation to veterans whose health benefited from the sea air, until it was closed in 1940 due to the threat of invasion.
Taken over by the Home Office during the Second World War, in 1946 the property reopened as a provincial police training centre.
It would prepare for service constables for forces from Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and the Isle of Wight. But by the mid-1970s it was no longer required and the site was purchased by the rapidly-expanding Saga business.
A decade later it was all change for Saga, the district’s largest employer at the time, as it relocated its HQ to Bouverie House in Middelburg Square.
According to press coverage at the time, the firm had outgrown Enbrook House to the point where staff were even forced to work in the corridors.
The Sandgate building was also ill-suited to modern working practices and technology, which could be far better accommodated at the Middelburg building in the centre of Folkestone.
Saga had looked at relocating to towns as far afield as Maidstone, but it was a relief to its home town – and the reported 85% of staff who lived locally – that it opted to remain by the coast.
The late-1980s switch to Middelburg saw the Enbrook Park land put up for sale, and it was eventually snapped up by house-builders eager to develop the site.
But ensuing economic turmoil worsened the outlook for the housing market, and just a few years after disposing of the land it was back in the hands of the Saga group once more.
By 1998 the firm’s new headquarters was ready – and it has been the company’s main base through years of change which saw the business sold by its founders, the De Haan family.
The biggest change of all, though, was perhaps the pandemic and the dramatic shifts in working patterns it brought about.
Saga swiftly shifted to a successful work-from-home model during the worst of the social-distancing regulations, and despite the return of in-person working it looks like there is simply no need for a huge office complex designed for 1,000 or so 9-5, Monday to Friday, employees.
The changes brought about by a new ‘hybrid’ working week have already been noticed in Sandgate well before Saga announced this week that it will close its offices at Enbrook.
Cllr Prater said: “You don’t get lots of people coming out of the Saga building any more, coming down the high street and eating and drinking in local pubs and things as much as they used to do when it used to have 1,000 people up there all the time.
“There’s a lot less of that. It’s much more self-contained. So there’s some aspects whereby a different use of that site would bring more footfall and life to parts of the village.
“But there’s a huge question on what that is and that shouldn’t come at the loss of any of the open space.
“It depends on the use that they’re putting it to and they’re not giving answers on that at the moment. I think that’s because they haven’t yet made a decision.”
Saga has not made any public statement on future plans for the site, only saying it will be moving to a network of smaller hub offices while remaining “committed to Kent and Folkestone where the majority of its colleagues live”.
Asked about the ongoing commitment to the wider Enbrook Park as a community asset, a spokesperson for Saga said: “As a Saga-owned site, we will continue to maintain the building and the grounds to a high standard.”
This will offer some reassurance to locals, who use the parkland for exercise, dog-walking and the development of a much-valued community garden.
Sal Kenward, who is chairman of the Sandgate Society, said: “While appreciating this is an economic decision of Saga, having received assurances over the last few years that Saga would retain Enbrook Park as its prestigious HQ, our community is naturally very concerned that they are leaving.
“The immediate area of concern in the short term is the wonderful Sandgate Community Garden situated in the old kitchen garden.
“This has grown from nothing in 2019 to a large area tended by a core of 12 volunteers plus many pop-ins each week.
“Also of concern to the Sandgate Society is that Enbrook Park continues to be maintained by Saga at its current high levels until the ownership changes, and even then a level of commitment from a new owner as part of the sale may be wishful thinking, but would be reassuring.”
Future ownership, and the eventual fate of the land, is probably the matter of greatest concern to the village as a whole.
Plans for homes on the site in the 1990s may have been derailed, leading to the return of Saga, but demand for coastal properties in the Folkestone and Hythe district is such that the site would be of great interest to developers.
In 2021 Saga applied for, and received, ‘prior approval’ for outline plans to convert the main building at Enbrook Park into around 60 flats.
Cllr Prater says he can see the potential benefit to the village from housing – or potentially other business ventures – on the already developed parts of the site.
But developers will have a fight on their hands if they start to eye up the greenery which makes up much of the surrounding park.
“I think a lot of locals and a lot of us would fight for every tree, every path and every habitat in there,” he said.
“I’ll be chaining myself to a tree if they’re trying to remove that access.
“More people living there, more people there on a day-to-day basis, more people who come there for a holiday and then come down and spend – these are all potentially huge benefits.
“So it’s not an all doom-and-gloom thing, but it is really important that the site’s protected and that in the process of seeing it regenerate into something new we don’t lose the good bits.”
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