The manor passed through several sets of disparate hands in the twentieth century. Abandoned by 1935, it was purchased two years later by Violet Van der Elst, a businesswoman and inventor, who made her money from developing the first brushless shaving cream and made her name by campaigning against capital punishment. She restored the house and had it wired for electricity. During the Second World War, it was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force as the officers' mess for RAF Harlaxton and later to house a company of the 1st Airborne Division.