estateCountry House Rescue · Season 3, Episode 6 · Aired April 10, 2011
Garston Manor/High Elms Manor
Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire
This one did not make it. The business closed.
What happened after
Grade II listed Georgian house (renamed from Garston Manor back to its original 'High Elms Manor' during/after the Country House Rescue episode); ran as a Montessori school under Sheila O'Neill until her death, after which her daughters put the property on the open market. No longer operating as a school, wedding venue, or any commercial business as of the listing.
What happened on the show
Garston Manor, a Grade II listed Georgian house near Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire, had an unusual second life when the show found it. Sheila O'Neill had bought it from the local council as a near-ruin and converted it into a Montessori school, which thirteen years on was only just breaking even. Ruth Watson's approach was to spread the load: she encouraged Sheila and her four daughters each to take charge of a different scheme to lift the manor's fortunes, from a new terrace and improved gardens to a woodland treasure hunt and, memorably, a UFO academy. Whether any of these ventures would actually turn a profit near Abbots Langley was the open question of the episode. The house also carries a naming quirk tied to this period, reverting from Garston Manor back to its original title of High Elms Manor around the time of its Country House Rescue appearance, a small restoration of identity alongside the commercial rescue Ruth was attempting.
After the cameras left
The manor near Abbots Langley is no longer a working business. Now known again as High Elms Manor, it carried on as a Montessori school run by Sheila O'Neill until she died, at which point her daughters listed the property for sale. As of our latest verification pass it operates as no school, wedding venue or commercial concern of any kind. We confirmed the for-sale, no-longer-in-school-use status from Wikipedia directly; local reporting that the house could return to residential use or become a spa or country retreat reached us in snippet form only, so we cite it with that caution, and we could not pin down the exact year the school closed. The venture-spreading Ruth designed kept the school going for a time, but the business did not outlast its founder.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.