IT began life as one of Southampton grandest houses but ended its days as a temporary shelter for the homeless until finally the demolition gang moved in.

Mayfield House in Weston stood in its impressive grounds until 1958, almost exactly a century after its construction in the 19th century for one Robert Wright who died before the house was completed.

It is thought that on the site at one time was another house known as Oak Bank, but the details of how long it stood there, when it was pulled down and who lived in it are lost in the mists of time.

The land, at least, was part of the Weston Grove estate belonging to the Chamber-layne family - William Chamberlayne was MP for Southampton - and a link with those days is the Weston Obelisk, which gave its name to Obelisk Road.

Chamberlayne had this erected in 1810 to the memory of the great parliamentarian, Charles James Fox, but apparently no inscription was ever put on the monument.

It is said that in the 1880s two horses were buried near the spot, and one of the panels inscribed to their memory.

Mayfield House was acquired in 1889 by Lord Radstock and remained in the possession of the family until Southampton Corporation brought the house and estate in 1937 for £23,500.

Lord Radstock or Granville Augustus William Waldegrave, to give him his full name, succeeded to his title when he was 23 and soon after his return from the Crimea was to devote his life to preaching the Gospel.

His work in Czarist Russia is best remembered and Tolstoy portrays him as Sir John in Anna Karenina.

Lord Radstock died in 1913 and is buried in Weston churchyard. Though there is no memorial to him in the park, the inscription on its famous obelisk - "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" - is a reminder of the evangelical squire.

When bought by the council it was decided that the grounds were to be used as a park, and for recreation. At the time there was a suggestion that the house might be used as a museum, but nothing happened and events were overtaken by the Second World War.

When peace returned the house passed into use as accommodation for homeless families that signalled the start of a catalogue of complaints from people housed in what were claimed to be unsuitable conditions.

Finally, the families were moved out to homes in Millbrook Road or provided with council houses so leaving Mayfield House to be pulled down.

"Glassless windows peer out of the creeper covered walls over heaps of debris and broken brick; the patter of tiny feet, at one time there were dozens and dozens of children living there with their families, is heard no more, only the scrape of pick and the fall of masonry" said the Daily Echo in 1956.

"And so another chapter opens as one closes and Mayfield House, landmark in its day but a problem house in its old age, crumbles to lumps of stone and piles of bricks and dust."