Harry Gordon - Mr Selfridge

Did you know that between 1916 and 1922, Harry Gordon aka Mr Selfridge rented Highcliffe Castle, fully furnished for £5,000 a year?

Born in Ripon, Wisconsin, Gordon visited London in 1906 and was inspired to spend £400,000 building a department store in Oxford Street.  On it's first day, it had 90,000 customers through the door.

Gordon loved living here on the South Coast so much so that he bought a large area of Hengistbury Head hoping to build a large house with a 450ft central tower on the land.   If the house had been built, it would of cost an estimated £86 million in today's money.  The plan never came to fruition and Gordon frittered his money away and ended up living in a flat in Putney by the time he died.

Both he and his wife are buried here in the south.