Sam Alper

The Great Hall is a Grade II listed building dating from 1820 and the house itself dates from 1840 although there has been a farm at the site since Saxon times.

Samuel Alper OBE (25 April 1924 – 2 October 2002) was an English caravan designer and manufacturer responsible for the famous Sprite caravan, founder of the Little Chef chain of roadside restaurants, a viticulturist who revived the ancient Roman winery at Chilford Hall, a sculptor, the founder of the Curwen Print Study Centre for teaching printmaking and a philanthropist who sent caravans abroad to aid in disaster relief programmes.

Alper was born in Forest Gate, then in Essex, now part of the London Borough of Newham, the son of a hairdresser.

On leaving school at 14 he went to night school to study electrical engineering.

When the Second World War was declared, he volunteered for the Navy and found himself serving with the Fleet Air Arm where his electrical engineering training was put to good use rewiring Swordfish biplanes.

On the cessation of hostilities, Alper went to work for his brother Henry in his newly established caravan company, Alperson Products, in Stratford, east London.

Henry soon left leaving Sam with the company.

Materials were in short supply in the austerity of post-war Britain and Alper had to make the first caravans out of what he could get.

By 1947 he had designed and made his first touring caravan with magnesium wheels and suspension and the brakes from a Spitfire fighter aircraft.

The roof was made out of the material from barrage balloons.

Those first caravans were, in Alper's opinion, too expensive and he decided to try to produce a cheaper, lighter version that could be towed by an ordinary family saloon car.

Within a year the Sprite was launched.

Built from tempered hardboard, it sold for less than £200.

One of Alper's relatives suggested the name and it soon caught on as he sold 500 caravans in the first year of production.

In 1951 he towed one of his caravans to an international caravan rally in Florence, Italy as a publicity stunt.

The following year he tried something a bit more ambitious, a 10,000-mile (16,000 km) trip round the Mediterranean towing a caravan behind a 3.5-litre SS Jaguar.

Roads in Yugoslavia and Greece were found to be impassable so he had to go part of the way by train, and in the Sahara he had to be rescued by local tribesman who dug him out of the sand.

A 1956 test carried out at Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) proving grounds near Nuneaton in Warwickshire, saw 30000 mi of testing produce just one broken gas mantle.

The first restaurant opened near Reading in Berkshire in 1958 and had just eleven seats.

Based principally on Britain's A-roads, they were ideally suited to the new breed of travellers taking to the expanding road network and soon Little Chefs with their now iconic logo were springing up all over the country.

With little or no commercial competition they proved remarkably popular and within ten years the brand had been subsumed into the Gardner Merchant group of companies which eventually became a part of Trust House Forte.

Continuing to innovate, Little Chef introduced cheap travellers' hotels alongside some of the restaurants.

The Alperson Sprite proved so popular that production was moved to Newmarket in Suffolk and in 1959 the Sprite Caravan Owners' Club was launched.

Originally launched in 1960 it went through several incarnations until being withdrawn in 1976 but made a brief reappearance in 1985.

By 1963, Alper had founded Caravans International, which had purchased the Eccles brand and merged with Bluebird Caravans, and distributed these and the Sprite brand to Europe, South Africa, Canada and the United States.

In 1966 Caravans International won the Queen's Awards for Enterprise and Alper was made OBE for his services to exports.

Soon there were several models in different sizes.

The Sprite 400 was designed to be towed by smaller family cars such as the Volkswagen Beetle.

In 1966, Alper bought a group of old farm buildings in Linton near Cambridge with a view to turning them into a conference, banqueting and cultural centre.

In 1970 Caravans International decided to cater for the small car owner and introduced the Sprite Cadet, just 8' 6" long and with a door located unusually at the rear. It had a small wardrobe, basic kitchen and compact small dinette at the front. Designed to sell at £227 the model was first launched with a large plastic roof vent which soon earned it the name of the bubble-top. After one season the model was withdrawn and launched again for the 1971 season with a new sleeker shell.

Alper served as treasurer and then chairman of the National Caravan Council, the industry body, for many years.

He was also among those who set up the European Caravan Federation and served as president for almost a decade.

Recognising the up and down nature of the caravan industry and its seasonal character Alper spread his interests further, developing the first successful table football game, Soccerette, he built yachts for a time and was also responsible for the first popular brand of roadside diner in Britain.

Alper added to the property over the years adding an art gallery in 1971 and the Pavilion from 1968 with major alterations made in 1997.

The recession of the 1980s took a heavy toll on the British caravan industry, and in 1982 Caravans International went into liquidation.

The rights to the various brands were sold to Hull-based Cosalt, who kept the CI brand but renamed the division Cosalt International. Cosalt today still manufacture static caravans under the CI brand, but sold the touring caravan business to Swift Leisure.

Alper based the Little Chef concept on the small diners he had seen while marketing his caravans in the United States.

By 1996 the brand was taken over by Granada plc at which point Alper sold his interest in the company.

The barn complex was destroyed by arsonists in 2012.

The oldest building at Chilford Hall is the Little Barn, built in the early 18th century.