Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/634

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��John Reed to come to Weybridge to attend his father's month-mind. There was to be 'a great assembly of his kin,' and Isabel Reed, John's stepmother, thought it right for him to be present." Mistress Isabel was a thorn in Cromwell's side ; she continued to live at Oatlands for a time as his tenant, and made various efforts to get possession of her stepson's property. 43 However, in 1537 John Reed and his guardian con- veyed the manor of Oatlands to Henry VIII, who wished to annex it to the honour of Hampton Court, 44 receiving in exchange the house, lands, &c., of the suppressed monastery of Tandridge. 45 In December 1537 the king spent a fortnight at Oatlands in the Reed's old house 46a ; and he set on foot repairs there as well as at Hampton Court and Nonsuch. 46 The building of the new palace began in 1538. During the next few years he paid frequent short visits to his new palace, and was there married to Katherine Howard. 4 ' Queen Elizabeth visited Oatlands on several occasions, 48 for the last time in August, 1602, when she is said to have shot with a crossbow in the paddock. 49 James I, with the queen and prince, was at Oatlands for some time before his coronation. 60 In 1611 he granted the manor, house, and park to the queen for eighty years. 51

Charles I stayed several times at Oatlands, partly for the sake of the stag-hunting, 51 though he found the accommodation insufficient for his retinue. 63 In 1640 his fourth son, Henry Duke of Gloucester, was born there." The head-quarters of the royal army were there after the advance to London had been stopped at Turnham Green in 1 642." Charles him- self was taken to Oatlands on his journey from Holdenby House in August, i647, 66 and apparently spent some days there in the charge of the Commis- sioners, as Lord Montagu wrote from here to the Commons requesting more money for the king's privy purse, and that his clothes, table-linen, &c. might be sent there. 57

Most of the buildings were destroyed and the land was disparked during the Interregnum, a quantity of timber being felled in the park for the use of the navy ; M but after the Restoration the queen-dowager regained possession of Oatlands. 59 The estate was subsequently leased to Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans (traditionally the second husband of Queen Henrietta Maria), who sold his interest in it to Sir Edward Herbert, who lived in the Reeds' old house. 60 Sir Edward was a faithful servant of James II, and was attainted in consequence of having taken part in that king's invasion of Ireland ; his estates were confiscated, and Oatlands reverted to the Crown. In 1696 Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, his elder brother, obtained from William III a grant in

���CLINTON. Argent six crosslets ftchy table and a chief azure ivith tivo moltn or pierced gules therein.

��fee-simple of Oatlands, which he bequeathed in 1716 to Henry Clinton, Earl of Lincoln. The latter formed the gardens at Oatlands about 1725, and rebuilt the house on the terrace, which was burnt down in 1793." He died in 1728, and was succeeded by his son George, who only lived eigh- teen months after his father's death. The second son, Henry, came into the property, which he held for many years. He altered the garden, built the grotto, and made the Broad Water. He became Duke of Newcastle in 1768 ; and some time before his death in 1794 sold Oatlands to Frederick

Duke of York. 6 * The Duke of York died in 1827, and Oatlands was then sold to Mr. Edward Ball Hughes. The estate has since been broken up ; much of it was bought by Lord Francis Egerton and the Hon. John Locke-King. The house of the Duke of York, rebuilt after the fire of 1793, has been mostly pulled down, but part is incorporated in the Oatlands Park Hotel. A great part of the park, in the two parishes of Weybridge and Walton on Thames, is covered with villa residences.

The site of the palace is in the grounds of Oatlands Lodge, Mr. Justice Swinfen Eady's estate. In the garden walls are two gateways, bricked up, surmounted by fine flat pointed arches of moulded brickwork, and the traces of two blocked windows. These belonged to the small building shown in views on the north- west side of the courtyard of the palace. There is much old brickwork in the garden walls. There also remains what is known as the Subterranean Passage, along the line of the west side of the main build- ing. It is in places loft, wide, but has been nar- rowed by party walls in others. It is covered by a pointed arch of brickwork, and a cellar opening from it has a good arched entrance of moulded brick. It apparently extended beyond the palace at both ends. It has been interrupted, and its length is not exactly known. Though rather puzzling from its length, it probably was a basement to keep the house dry. There is a well in it, still used to supply a pump in the gardens, and as the cellar opens from it, it was clearly not a sewer. Tradition says that it reached at the north-west to Dorney House, in Weybridge. In the grounds of the same estate is the well-known grotto, built of tufa, quartz, shells and spars, with winding passages, imitation stalactites, and a marble bath, now dry. It was made for the Duke of New-

��<*L. and P. Hen, fill, vii, 1246. 48 Ibid, vii, 1247 ; ix, 1151 ; x, 106.

44 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 786 ; see L. and P. Hen. fill, xii (2), 1209.

4 >Ibid. xiii (i), 190 (2); Hart. MS. 4786.

45 The old house was on the site of the Earl of Lincoln's later house. It was (till standing in Walton parish when the Commonwealth Survey (q.v.) was made.

xiv(i), 904 (20) i xiv (2), 236, &c. 4 7Ibid. xvi, 1470, &c.
 * L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 1280 ;

tmt MSS. (Hist MSS. Com.), i

��(i), 21 j Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, App. i, 336.

"Hist. MSS. Cam. Ref. xi, App. vii, 123 ; Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 786.

60 Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. xiii, App. iv, 128.

61 Pat. 9 Jas. I, pt. xxvii.

^Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. iv, App. i, 294.

68 Ibid, xi, App. vii, 148.

H Weybridge Par. Reg. The duke was often called ' Henry of Oatlands.'

"Journ. of Prince Rupert's Marches, Engl. Hist. Rev. no. 52, p. 731.

47 8

��58 Lords' Journ. ix, 199 ; Com. Journ. v, 284.

6 ' Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. xiii, App. i, 43 3.

68 Ibid. App. i, xiii, 577.

" Lansd. MS. 252.

60 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 387 ; see Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. xiii, App. v, 241-6 ; Evelyn's Diary, 20 Dec. 1687, where Bray's editorial note is wrong.

81 ' Probably,' Manning and Bray write. But a contemporary print fixes the date of the building before his death.

64 Manning and Bray, ut supra j see Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. xv, App. vi, 546.

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