History of Burwood Park

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History of Burwood Park

INTRODUCTION
Burwood Park Residents Limited has been formed to support the interests of its members in the Park, and to help preserve the present amenities and environment.

Burwood Park is such a delightful place to live in, it is hoped proud owners of houses may be interested in this short history of the Park.

Reprinted and modified July 2001

BURWOOD PARK

Mention of Burwood in historical records appears as early as 962 AD. At that time the Saxons used to cross the river at Walton and attend the church which was there. From 1066 Burwood become part of one of the four Norman manors in the area, that of Walton Leigh and some time after was owned by the Lee family from whom King Henry VIII purchased it in 1540. He converted it into a deer park and hunting for wild deer and foxes in the Park went on for many years, although the heather undergrowth made the chase a little difficult at times. Common British mammals such as badgers, foxes, grey squirrels and hedgehogs exist in some numbers in the area now.

Because of the number of trees which have been planted in the Park through the years, together with the existence of Broadwater and Heart Pond, the bird-life has become quite notable, with over 150 species having been recorded. These include Little and Tawny Owls, Jays and Magpies and others of the crow family, Ring Necked Parakeets, Herons, Woodpeckers, various Finches, Thrushes and a number of waterfowl. Less common British birds and migrants can also be seen.

Between 1617 and 1720, Burwood Park passed through a succession of purchasers and their heirs, the names of whom are in the records, but of these, the most notable owner of the period is John Latton who purchased the area in 1720. Latton was Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey under Queen Anne and was later a great favourite of King William IV for whom he held several important posts.

In 1739 the first of the Frederick family acquired it and successive Fredericks enlarged it from 18 acres to its present extent of 360 acres by buying up parts of Walton Common, various tithe lands around the perimeter and also by purchasing the little hamlet of Burwood. The hamlet, with its windmill which was destroyed in 1797, was on the site of the house named Webbers’ Ridge in Cranley Road.

The original Burwood Park mansion was built by Sir John Frederick (1708-1783), a wealthy city merchant. It was he who planted many of the trees and shrubs, which are a feature of the woodlands, for he collected a number of fine and unusual specimens. The famous oak tree in Eriswell Road, one of the 200 oldest trees in Britain, pre-dated his landscaping the Park, although he did develop the gravel pits into the present ornamental lakes. These drained into Black Pond, under the site of Lynwood in Eastwick Road and thence to the War Memorial Pond (now filled in) in Hersham and thence to the River Mole.

The second Sir John Frederick (1749-1825) lived in the mansion, as did Sir Richard Frederick. The bridge across the ex-London and South Western Railway main line from Nine Elms to Woking Common was named after Sir Richard who had it built to enable his pony and trap access to Walton for Hersham Station (as it was then called) which was opened in May 1838. He died in 1863 and one Henry Askew of Westmorland was the next purchaser. Two of his three daughters (named in the deeds held by many present day residents) erected a black painted corrugated iron fence all around the Park and lived in the mansion as virtual recluses. The Park deteriorated rapidly and become overgrown although the ice-houses near the lakes may still have been used at this time for refrigeration purposes.

After both of these ladies died, an estate company first purchased and then sold the park to Edward Guinness (1847-1927), First Earl of Iveagh, in the year in which he died. Rupert Guinness (born 1874), Second Earl of Iveagh, offered the Park as a special kind of residential estate in 1934. He was the first Chairman of the Burhill Estates Company formed for this purpose and named a number of roads in the Park after Guinness family estates in Suffolk.

A number of houses in the Park, like The Beeches, had been built by the late nineteen twenties, but the first major housing development was in 1934 in Onslow Road. The other mansion (that at Burhill) in which Elizabeth Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington (1834-1901) had lived, was turned into the present Golf Club House and the mansion in Burwood Park was converted into a girls’ school under a Miss Jean Byrne. Vacated during the Second World War (for part of which, the Park was a park for Armoured fighting vehicles) the mansion was later occupied by over forty boys and girls whose qualification for residence was that they were born deaf. A new sixth form college was opened in 1975. The School was the only Secondary Technical School for deaf boys and girls in England and was sponsored by the Guinness family. The school eventually closed, and in 1999, Octagon Developments were commissioned to convert the listed building into one residential dwelling and to build seven further individual houses in the grounds.

In the 1934 Brochure, issued by the Burhill Estates Company, they state, “A number of houses had been built in the main part of the park and around the perimeter, on the “close” and “cul-de-sac” system with “no freak houses to disturb the eye”. By mid 1966 Onslow Road extended from North to South, with a new gate fronting on to Burwood Road and the building of houses along its length.

Plans were advanced in 1966 for the construction of a further twenty houses on an extension of Cranley Road returning to Eriswell Road near the School. Now, new houses have been built in Albury Road, Patmore Lane, Kelvedon Avenue, Ince Road and Eriswell Crescent and an area that used to be covered in Birch, Beech and Oak trees and was a favourite area for exercising dogs. This latter area of some 80 houses almost completes the development of the Park. And thus the deer park of Henry VIII has become a relatively quiet residential area.

BURWOOD PARK RESIDENTS LIMITED

Burwood Park Residents Limited was incorporated in January 1991. Although a residents association had existed in Burwood Park for many years, there was a lack of continuity between one owner and the next. After much discussion, the idea of incorporating a company with shares owned by the residents was thought to be the most practical.

Burwood Park Residents Limited has an authorised capital of £400 (there are some 370 houses in the Park) and each owner is entitled to purchase one £1 share. Under the Articles of Association (a copy of which is given to each member), members are required to pay the annual subscription set at each Annual General Meeting (currently £100) for the duration of their ownership and to transfer the share to the new owner on sale.

Tenants are entitled to associate membership of the company but not to shares or to vote at meetings. Associate membership is free to tenants if the owner is a member, but otherwise a subscription of £50 is payable.

The company is run by a committee of not more than ten members, elected annually at the AGM. The committee functions for the benefit of the members and specifically has no power to release Burhill Estates Company Limited from any obligation without the approval of the members.

A budget for the ensuing year is presented for the approval of members at each AGM and accounts for the past year are also submitted for approval. All resolutions at General Meetings require to be passed by a two-thirds majority.

BURHILL ESTATES

Burhill Estates was started as a private company belonging to the family of the Earl of Iveagh.

The name Burhill dates from 1970 and was previously known as Mount Latton and before that as the Manor of Moreshall, sometimes written as Morehawe or Silkesmore.

In 1540 the Manor of Moreshall and associated lands, about 200 acres, was made over by John Carlton, a Walton lawyer, to King Henry VIII in exchange for ex-monastic land elsewhere. This transaction took place when the King acquired all the manors between the Thames, Wey and Mole Rivers and Wisley, for conversion into a large deer park, which was called the Honour of Hampton Court. Moreshall it seems become depopulated.

On the King’s death, the area was disparked and in 1548 King Edward VI granted the site of the manor to John Ravyce on a 21 year lease at 66 shillings and 8 pence per year.

Ten years later, the crown granted a reversion of the lease to David Vincent, a personal friend of the King for 31 years to start in 1569. He died however in 1565 before he could take up residence and his rights passed to his son, Thomas Vincent, who married the heiress to Stoke D’Abernon, Jane Lyfield. When he came into his wife’s property at Stoke D’Abernon in 1575, he sold his interests in Moreshall in 1579 to John Inwood, Yeoman of Weybridge.

The Inwoods, who seem to have built up their fortunes on marriage dowries, had acquired considerable property in the district. They appear to have retained Moreshall until around 1710, when they sold it to John Latton, an elderly and much married courtier, who had recently acquired one of the Esher manors. Latton may have bought Moreshall as a residence for one of his children, possibly his daughter Roberta, who had married a Col. John Johnson. From this period the property was known as Mount Latton, which suggests that Latton enlarged or rebuilt the house.

About 1716, Latton liquidated his Esher holdings and sold Esher Manor and Mount Latton to Peter Delaporte, a director of the South Sea Company. When the company failed in 1720, Delaporte was fined £7,151 by Parliament and lost the Esher Manor but managed to retain Mount Latton. On his death he left it to Lt. General John Johnson, possibly Roberta Latton's’ husband. He died in 1753 and left the property to his son Captain (later Colonel) John Johnson. In 1765, Johnson married a double heiress, Jane Hassell. In 1788 on the death of her uncle, she inherited the West Country estate of the Tynte and Kemeys families. She and her husband then changed their name to Kemeys-Tynte, refurbished the house and estate and called it Burhill.

Colonel John Kemeys-Tynte (formerly Johnson) was an officer in the 1st Regiment of Footguards, Groom of the Bedchamber and Comptroller and Master of the Household to the Prince of Wales, court posts which made a residence within easy reach of London, Hampton Court and Windsor, essential.

Between 1800 and 1804, Walton Common was enclosed by Act of Parliament, and the Colonel acquired all the newly enclosed land between his Burhill boundary and the newly laid down Seven Hills Road, a tract of rough grazing running to some 176 acres.

Col. Kemeys-Tynte died in 1807 and his widow in 1825. The property then passed to Col. John Kemeys-Tynte II, born in 1778, MP for Bridgewater, whose landed interests were mainly in the West Country. In 1849, Burhill was put up for auction. It then comprised the mansion, outbuildings, gardens and associated parkland running to 212 acres, the Enclosure Lands of 176 acres, and some fields at Hersham of 19 acres.

The estate was eventually purchased by Francis Thomas Bircham, a wealthy Parliamentary lawyer. After a serious fire, Bircham reconstructed the mansion in approximately its present form, and elements of the earlier buildings seem to have survived. When the Frederick estates were sold in 1873, he purchased various portions which he added to the fringes of the Burhill estate. He was responsible for the afforestation of the Enclosed Lands separating the old estate from Seven Hills Road. He was a keen churchman and was largely responsible for promoting the rebuilding of Hersham church. If his choice had been accepted, the present church would have been built on what is now Vaux Mead. He died in 1883 leaving just over £161,000.

In 1887, Burhill was purchased for Edward Cecil Guinness, the future 2nd Earl of Iveagh, except for a small 5 acre plot fronting onto Seven Hills Road, which was retained by Bircham’s son-in-law, A R Ricarde, who built for himself here the house still known as “Fox Oak”. The architect was Halsey Ricarde and the house was owned by the Whiteley Homes Trust until 10th July 1963 when it was sold for £18,500. The Trust used the house for administration and the Warden for Whiteley Village lived upstairs.

The future Earl of Iveagh is believed to have cherished some idea of living at Burhill himself, but meanwhile leased the property to the seventy year old dowager Duchess of Wellington, the widow of the second Duke, doubtless expecting a short tenancy. In fact, however, she lived on until 1904 by which time he had established himself elsewhere. When the Terry estate was sold in 1897, he added some 88 acres to the Burhill estate at the north east corner.

Once established at Burhill, the Duchess of Wellington became the patroness of Hersham. She had about her an aura of royalty and was an intimate friend of the Royal Duchess of Albany at Claremont. The local cricket matches were played on the Burhill fields and the Duchess organised genteel sewing classes at which the virtuous ladies of Hersham made shirts for the deserving poor!

She died in 1904 and in 1906, Lord Iveagh converted 200 acres of Burhill into a Golf Club. This was to be run by a limited company on a 28 year lease with an option to buy the land at a fixed price. The central portion of the estate remains as a golf club and the mansion serves the joint functions of Club House and offices of the Burhill Estates Company.

In 1911, Lord Iveagh sold the whole of the north west side of the estate, some 225 acres, including the afforested Enclosure Lands, to the Whiteley Village project. This included 52 acres at the NW corner of the property, formerly Pond Head Farm, acquired at the break-up of the Frederick estate in 1873. The pond which gave its name to this farm still survives on the approach to Whiteley Village from Burwood Road. It had originally been known as High Park Farm, but had been reconstructed during the Frederick regime.

Certain topographical features are still of interest. Until the Enclosure of 1804, the NW boundary of the estate was Walton Common, along which ran a rough road. Several small settlements developed along this road, the Hersham end of which was known as Robert's Lane in the 17th Century and later became Rabbit Lane. One of these, originally a copyhold of the manor of Walton on Thames, became the nucleus of Burhill Farm. After the Enclosures, this become isolated in the middle of the Kermeys-Tynte land and according to the census of 1851, was organised to farm about 500 acres. Its farming activities were ended by the sale of much of the land to the Whiteley Village trustees in 1911 and the conversion of the rest into a golf course. A fine belt of mature trees marks this old boundary. Turpins Cottage on the estate was known as Woodhatch in 1849. (Printed by courtesy of Burhill Estates Limited.)

BURHILL GOLF CLUB

Before the last war, the club had two 18 hole courses, and at one time, an additional small 9 hole course. The 9 hole course was at the western end of the present course, whilst the other 18 holes covered much of what was farmland on the other side of the River Mole – the 18th hole finishing on a green at the back of the clubhouse. During the war, that course was ploughed up for food growing and remained so until 2001, when it is due to be re-opened.