Hugh Seely, son of the second Sir Charles Seely, was the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air for a substantial part of the Second World War (1941–45) and was created Baron Sherwood in 1941. He was a colourful character, who inherited Brooke House and lived variously at Brook Hill and Gardener’s Cottage (which he renamed Sherwood Lodge) and is remembered mostly for his eccentricities and social life.

David Hollis remembers tales of Edward, Prince of Wales, partying at Brook Hill during Cowes Week: although the village girls who worked there would never speak about it. Hughie (as he was called by his family) divided his time between London, Brook and his yacht in the south of France and is remembered arriving on the Yarmouth ferry in his Rolls Royce with his partner, or, as she was called in those days, his ‘mistress’, Kate Ranger. They wore matching red-lined cloaks and striped jerseys with Lottie, the name of his yacht, enbroidered on them.

Shooting was his passion (in 1946 he bought James Purdey, the famous London gunmaker) and the rhodedendrons on Brook Hill were planted to provide good ground cover.  Among those who came to Brook to shoot in the 1950s was Lord Boothby. Jane Cotton, who lived on the Estate, remembers being kept indoors when there were shooting parties, especially after the guests had had a generous liquid lunch...

A poem Heritage, written by Elizabeth Bowyer, wife of the rector of Brook and Mottistone, mentions this ‘eccentric peer’ (see below). 

During World War II Brooke House was occupied by the Canadian soldiers. The story has it that the house was later ruined when the top storey burned and collapsed. After the war the house was converted into flats for the families of Estate workers and in 1957, exactly 100 years since Charles Seely first bought the house, the flats were sold by auction along with much of the Brooke Estate.