The White House

Prior to this move, the home of the college was at Beech Lawn, Uppermill, Lancashire. In his book SCHOLARSHIP on FIRE, Hugh Rae explains below how Nazarene College acquired the White House following his first visit to the Didsbury site in 1959 when it was up for sale.

He writes:

“But as I walked up the avenue of the White House on a cold January day, I was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the building. On entering the house with its lovely oak panelling, I was captivated and felt that this was surely God’s provision for us.

The main building and outhouses had been built in 1914 and the materials were of the best. The leaded windows built into thick oak window frames were impressive and the whole place had an appearance of grandeur. It was owned by the Godlee family, who had been in textiles, had died, and the family home was being broken up. The house had a large music room, used by the Godlee family who performed as a string quartet. Philip Godlee had been chairman of the world-famous Hallé Orchestra. They were keen that we should buy the property since they sensed we would preserve it intact. Eventually an offer of £9,500 was made and, by word of mouth, was accepted by the trustees selling the property. All seemed to be going well when suddenly we were informed that another offer, a little higher, had been made. We all felt that we should not start haggling. We had offered our final figure, it had been accepted, and we all felt that any offers from other buyers should be turned down. That, indeed, was finally what happened.

However, we were not yet sure that we would be allowed to use the building as a theological college. We had decided to buy and hoped that the permission for change would be given. When our solicitor proceeded to apply for permission he discovered that, because all the land was allocated, the original owners could not give permission, and we would be required to get signatures from all the neighbours stating that they had no objection to this change of use to a theological college. It was a discouraging thought. None of the neighbours knew who or what we were. Many of them followed a different religious persuasion and the situation could have been difficult.

The situation was eventually resolved and the move was completed in April, 1959. The college moved into the White House in an extremely fine residential district of Manchester, close to city facilities and with five acres of land for development.”

Incidentally, following the move to Didsbury it was decided to call the college British Isles Nazarene College. Soon it was simply BINC by which it was most commonly referred to. 

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