Goodbye To A Worting House Icon

Worting House has been through a lot of change over its 300 year lifetime – from its original purpose as a Georgian manor house to its time as the home of a naval architectural firm to the present day. Each transformation has ushered in a new era for the building, and Christmas 2021 sees the latest epochal event for Worting House.

With a strange mix of both sadness and excitement, we can announce that Julie Kehoe-Smith (Mrs Worting House herself) will be leaving us on Christmas Eve 2021. While she’ll be sticking around for one day a week to continue to help with accounts, her involvement and presence in the day to day will decrease significantly.

Julie has been an integral part of Worting House for 20 of our 33 years of operation, and we’re sure there’ll be many of you who, like us, will miss her dearly. But she leaves having made such a huge impact on Worting House and our members, and we all have wonderful memories of her time here, from her input on Summer BBQs to her consistent contribution of Christmas mince pies and wine.

Julie – thank you for everything you’ve contributed to Worting House over the years. It’s not just us who wants to thank you, though, some of our lovely members have sent their best wishes, too:

“To me, Julie is/was the reincarnation of Penelope Keith in ‘To a Manor Born’, and I always referred to her as ’Lady Worting’, a title she had no hesitation in responding to! Everybody will have their own opinion of her, but to me, she was the single reason I moved my business to Worting House nearly four years ago, and I have had no reason to regret or reconsider this decision. Despite the trials and tribulations of the various lockdown policies, I have always found her to be charming and cheerful and very efficient and, of equal if not greater importance, I have always found this reflected in her team. I will be sorry to see her leave and hope that Marta has big feet because she has very large shoes to fill.” – Simon Randall, Randall’s Residential

“Thank you Julie for putting up with me and for your help in finding me a ‘home’ at Worting House. I am very happy here! I wish you all the best in the future!” – Samantha, Skin Sister

“I just want to wish Julie every success for the future, she has been particularly helpful during my time as a resident of Worting House. She has always been a cheerful soul who endeavoured to look after the needs of her clients. I particularly enjoyed the Summer BBQs and Christmas mince pies/wine that were always organised by her. Great times provided and great endeavour by Julie.” – Geoff, K3 Consulting & Training Services

“We are so sorry to hear you are leaving. Although we have only been working from Worting House for a couple of months it has been a pleasure to work with you. You have been so thorough and extremely helpful with any issues or advice we have had or required. You will be missed. We wish you a very happy and relaxing Christmas and wish you all the very best for anything you decide to do in the future.” – Hayley & Richard Flahive, Nortons Mechanical Ltd.

“Julie will be greatly missed by the lads at Deane Computer Solutions.  Over the past 6 years and 2 separate stints at Worting House, Julie has been wonderful making sure we are happy at all times! You certainly know when Julie is in, we will miss hearing her laughter from the reception which brightened our mornings. Good luck for the future, we wish you all the best!” – Dan Bunston, Deane Computer Solutions

“We have been based at Worting House since 2014 and throughout the introduction and settling in process Julie was very efficient making the whole experience a pleasure rather than a stressful time that moving offices tend to be. Julie was always on hand to assist and made it her mission to put her clients first, she had a very clear vision for the way Worting House needed to be run and all of our customers without fail expressed admiration for the experience when visiting the premises. It has been a pleasure working with Julie. We will miss her quick wit, whirlwind passion, determination to get the job done, of course her BBQs! Finally, we should mention Julies ability to manage Worting House throughout the pandemic, this was not an easy time, her planning, communication and ability to be calm under the most complicated of situations was superb, she made Worting House a safe place to work, this in itself was a great achievement and should not be underestimated. Good luck Julie and thank you from team CellarDine!” – Peter Dunne, CellarDine

“Although we have only had our office here for a short while, Julie was extremely accommodating at the time we were looking for office space. Since moving into our office, Julie has always been there for us if we needed anything and as a result we are very happy here. Whenever we see her around the place , she always has a smile on her face, a friendly manner about her and we shall certainly miss her. We would all like to wish her well in whatever it is she decides to do and wish her and her Family a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.” – Paul Critchell, DMA Storage

“Dear Julie, it’s been a true joy getting to know you even if for a short period of time. You are one of the key reasons why I decided to get an office at Worting House, especially thanks to your beautiful and sunny personality. I wish you all the best for the future. Please keep in touch.” – Claudia Tinnirello, Sophisticated Cloud

“Best of luck in whatever you choose to do Julie. Best wishes!” – Neil Dymond, Pario

“Julie, thank you so much for all your help over the past 2 years. I have loved working at Worting House, which is as good as it is because of all your hard work and dedication. It will not be the same without you!! Enjoy your new adventures and hopefully you’ll pop in from time to time so that you can tell us how you’re doing”. – Clare Nunn

“Lovely Julie, I am so sad to see you leave but I wish you all the very best for the future. I am sure you will be very much missed at the house. I haven’t known you for long, but you have always been so welcoming and kind to me whilst i’ve been working at Worting House.  If you ever need a relaxation, you know where to find me! :)”  Ingrid, Eureka Therapy

As an exciting follow-up to that bittersweet news, we can also announce that Marta MacFarlane will be joining us as centre manager from January. She’s coming to Worting House from VWorks in the Village Hotel in Basingstoke, and we can’t wait for you all to meet her in the new year!

For now, though, we’ll leave you with our reception hours for over the holiday period, and by wishing you all a wonderful holiday season full of festivities, cheer, and happiness. See you on the other side!

Worting House Reception Hours