Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/642

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��adorned by grotesque paintings of children in theatrical costumes by John Ellis, the piers between the win- dows being large painted looking-glasses from China. The state drawing-room was hung with green silk, and the ceiling painted with grotesque designs by Kent. 60 The Princess of Wales at this time held both the palaces, and about 1770 she gave up Kew House to George III, who purchased the freehold of it," and moved over to the present Kew Palace, or the Dutch House, where she died in 1772. George III, who had spent much of his boyhood at Kew," began to use it again as a country residence when his family became too large to be accommodated in Richmond Lodge. 64

The life led by the royal family at Kew was very domestic. According to a description written in the summer of 1775, the king and queen rose at six in the morning and enjoyed uninterrupted leisure until eight, when the elder children were brought from their several houses to breakfast with them. The younger ones were brought to the palace at nine. In the afternoons the queen worked and the king read to her, and once a week the whole family would make a tour of Richmond Gardens. 65 The house, according to Fanny Burney, who came here with the Court in 1786, was inconvenient and old- fashioned. Excepting the royal apartments the rooms were small and dark and there were stair- cases in every passage and passages to every closet. Miss Burney declares that on her first evening there she lost her way continually ' only in passing from my room to the queen's.' M When the king's madness finally declared itself at Windsor in the autumn of 1788, the doctors urged his removal to Kew, and this was only achieved by keeping him in ignorance of their purpose. 67 Queen Charlotte and the Court drove to Kew House on 29 November and awaited his arrival without unpacking their baggage lest they should fail to bring him, and Miss Burney relates how late that night she heard the carriage arrive and the sound of the king's voice talking incessantly and very fast. 63 Kew House was pulled down in I8O2. 69

The descent of the Dairy House cannot be traced with much certainty. It has been suggested that the date 1631 over the door is that of a sale to Samuel Fortrey after the death of Sir Hugh Port- man. 70 On the other hand the initials S and C F (Samuel and Catherine Fortrey) and the date 1631 .are in the usual place to indicate the date of building, and though the windows have no doubt been replaced and the house was generally retouched in the i8th century, its main features and design are hot unlike the date 1631. Samuel Fortrey, to whom the building of it may therefore with some proba- bility be ascribed, was a London merchant, the grandson of a Fleming of Lille, and himself married

��to a Hainaulter," whence the name the Dutch House, it being in a Flemish style. He had one son Samuel and two daughters," the younger of whom, Mary, married first Sir Thomas Trevor and secondly Sir Francis Compton, son of Spencer, Earl of Northampton. 73 In the following century this palace was inhabited by the royal family, and it was no doubt here that the daughters of George II stayed in 1728, as they were said to be inhabiting a house at Kew ' over against where Mr. Molyneux lived.' '* Some time before the Prince of Wales's death in 1751 the Princess Amelia was described as living opposite to his house, Kew Palace, in the house ' built by a Dutch Architect,' which Queen Caroline had bought or leased." This was clearly the present palace or Dutch House. After the death of the Princess of Wales, this palace was used for the young princes, and was called the Princes' House or the Royal Nursery. 78 It was inhabited by Georga III and Queen Charlotte after the other palace had been pulled down in 1802, and it was here that the queen died a little more than a year before the death of her husband. 77 The palace was thrown open to the public in 1899. It is a red brick building of three stories and attics ; the front entrance is in the middle of the south front and over it are the letters mentioned above, S F C united by a knot and the date 1631. The north front has projecting wings at either end and the south front has square bays. A distinctive decorative feature in these two fronts is formed by the pilasters which flank the middle windows, square on the first floor, round in the second and with moulded cornices. The windows generally have rusticated joints of brick. There are three shaped gable heads on the north and south fronts and two at each end, but those at the east are plain. The middle of the north front on the ground floor has been filled in flush between the projecting wings in modern times and has a balcony above. Almost all the internal fittings are of 18th-century or later insertion. Those with F upon them and the Prince of Wales's feathers were probably brought from the other palace. The main entrance opens on to a long passage through the building, at the north end of which are the main stairs of late i8th or early 19th-century date with carved ends to the heads. The first room on the left or west of the passage is the library ante-room, which is lined with some good 1 6th-century linen panelling which may be a relic of the old Dairy House. The library next to it is lined with 1 7th-century panelling. The two rooms to the east of the passage are the king's dining-room ' (south) and the ' king's break- fast room ' (north). The former is flagged with stone and lined with 18th-century panelling ; the latter has late 1 7th or early 18th-century panelling

��60 Chambers, Plans of Gardens at Ke-w,

61 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. i, 446.

69 Journ. of Mrs. Papendieck, i, 43.

68 Diet. Nat. Biog.

Journ. of Mrs. Papendieck, i, 43. Annual Reg. 1775. M Madame D'Arblay, Memoirs (ed. Austin Dobson), ii, 402. V Ibid, iv, 187, et seq. 8 Ibid.

69 Journ. of Kew Guild (1906), 297.

" Ibid. Lysons dates the sale in 1636, and says that it was by a Sir John Port-

��man, but there was no Sir John alive then.

7 1 fitit. of London, 1634-5, p. 284.

1* Ibid.

7* Genealogist, Hi, 297 ; Nichols, Tofog. and Gen. iii, 32.

7< Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xv, App. vi, 54.

7 s London and its Environs Described (Anon. 1761), v, 260 ; iii, 274. The author says that the queen bought from Sir Thomas Abney. Lysons says that William Fortrey, grandson of Samuel, sold his house to Sir Richard Levett. Sir Richard Levett, who died in 1710,

484

��had two houses in Kew (see his will at Somerset House). He and Abney served as Lord Mayor in consecutive years, and Abney may have bought part of his estate. In a map of 1771 the land between the Dutch House and the river is marked j belonging to Levett Blackburne, grandson of Sir Richard Levett. Probably Queen Caroline leased the property and Geo. Ill acquired the freehold.

7* Madame D'Arblay, Memoirs (ed. Austin Dobson), iii, 195.

"" Diet. Nat. Biog.

"* Jturn. ofKeiv G (1898), 6.

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