Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/720

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��back to the Crown in I547." 6 Later it was granted to the Duke of Suffolk, but was again resumed by the Crown after his attainder in 1554. The monastery was refounded for the remnant of English Carthu- sians, to be finally dissolved by Elizabeth. It was thus the latest founded and the last dissolved of the greater English monasteries. The site was granted by the queen to Sir Thomas Gorges and his wife, the Marchioness of Northampton, in 1584.'" James, Duke of Lennox, obtained a grant of it in 1638. At the time of the Commonwealth a detailed survey was taken of the buildings, and the site, valued at 92, was sold as Crown land to Alexander Easton. 1 * 9 In 1660 Charles II granted a lease of it for sixty years to Viscount Lisle, 130 who made it his residence for a time and transferred it to Lord Belasise about two years later, the latter obtaining a new lease of it in 1662 for sixty years. 131 In 1675 a lease of the priory was granted to certain persons in trust for Henry (afterwards Viscount) Brouncker and Sir William Temple.' 3 * Sir William had made the house which occupied the site of the priory his home since l663, 13> and constantly averred his delight in his sequestered abode, 134 which, however, he eventually gave to his son. 135 In 1696 another grant of the site of the monastery was made to Charles Bertie and others for thirty-one years, apparently in trust for the Duke of Leeds. 136 Two leases dated 1750 and 1760 conveyed separate parts of the estate to John Jefferys and Charles Buckworth for a term of years. 13 ' No remains of the priory are now in existence, the gateway which was the last survival having been taken down in ij6<). lia

The present town of Richmond has grown up for the most part on the other side of the site of the royal palace. During the 1 8th century the growth of the parish, judged by the number of its inhabitants, was considerable. 138 A place of entertainment called Richmond Wells, which had been opened in 1696 near a medicinal spring that once existed in the grounds of Cardigan House on the hill, attracted a great many people during the early part of the century, but it had lost its reputation when about 1755 the property was bought and the wells closed by the Misses Houblon, then living in a house nearly opposite, now Ellerker College. 140 In 1792 the number of houses, exclusive of the new workhouse built by George III about 1785, and the almshouses, was 8 1 5.'" Apart from the few relics of the Tudor Palace, and one or two other structures, old Rich- mond is essentially a Queen Anne and Georgian town. Among these exceptions is a bicycle-maker's shop at the corner of Duke Street on the Green which contains some early 1 7th-century oak panelling, whilst it is said that a large Elizabethan fireplace was found when the present shop-front was put in. A shop next to the police station in the main road also has an old fireplace with moulded jambs and lintel ot grey marble with a black marble keystone ; it is not unlike the fireplaces in Ham House of the time of Charles II, and is probably contemporary. Of the later period many examples could be enumerated.

��A large house with two projecting wings in the Sheen Road, now divided into three houses, has an 18th-century brick front, but the side walls are evidently of an earlier date. Streatham Lodge, as the north wing is called, has mostly 18th-century or modern fittings, but the staircase is evidently the work of the beginning of the 1 7th century ; the three upper flights are of exceptionally heavy woodwork, the moulded hand-rail being 7 in. wide by 6 in. deep, and the turned balusters 4 in. square ; the newels are plain (7 in. square) with ball tops, and the stair carriage or sloping string is also plain ; the lower flights are early I gth-century. The staircase is also the principal feature of Beverley Lodge, which occupies the south wing of the house ; this is a very fine example of early 18th-century workmanship ; the treads have moulded soffits and carved ends, the balusters are square with fluted sides, the newels are fluted Corinthian columns, and the hand-rail is moulded ; it is in four flights, and may have replaced one like that in Streatham Lodge, than which it is much wider, lighter, and more elegant.

No. 5 Hill Street is a late l/th or early 18th- century house with a staircase and fittings of the period ; the stair has twisted balusters. A carved over-door with fruit, flowers, &c., off the stair hall, is reminiscent of the work of Grinling Gibbons, as is also a carved picture-frame with a broken pediment fixed in the wall in the upper part of the stair hall.

' Queen Anne ' House (or No 1 1 The Green) is a building, as its name implies, of the beginning of the 1 8th century, with some good ironwork in front. In the front hall or passage is an oak carved and pierced screen which appears to be earlier than the house and brought from elsewhere. In the base- ment is a good lead cistern dated 1715.

There are several other old lead cisterns remaining in the neighbourhood ; at ' Abbotsdene ' on the Green is one dated 1709 with ornamental work in relief and the initials A B M ; in Palace Place adjacent another dated 1718, another at the back of Mr. Cockburn's shop inscribed 1735 G w I, and a fourth in Gloucester Road, Kew, dated 1768, with the letters T A A and with crests of stags in relief upon it.

Many of the doorways in Richmond are good examples of 18th-century workmanship and carving. Some in the Sheen Road are of similar character to the carved over-door in No. 5 Hill Street ; in Church Terrace are others worthy of notice ; and three in Michels Terrace are striking with their winged cherubs ; these all appear to be work of the first half of the century. A very good example of the iron- work of the period remains in the gateway to Marsh- gate House, Sheen Road. On the other side of the same road are the almshouses founded by Rebecca and Susannah Houblon in 1757 ; the entrance to the front quadrangle has some fairly good iron gates bearing that date. Perhaps two other relics of older Richmond are a gabled cottage in the passage east of the church, of timber cemented over, and three cottages in Vine Row of timber construction filled in

��156 Pat. I Edw. VI, pt. vi, m. 20.

W Ibid. 26 Eliz. pt. iii, m. 15.

128 Ibid. 14 Chas. I, pt. xliii, no. 23, m. IO.

1M Dugdalc, Man. vi, 30.

180 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1660-1, p. 208.

181 Pat. 14 Chas. II, pt. ii, no. 5.

��183 Dugdale, Man. vi, 30. 188 Diet. Nat. Biog. Ivi, 43.

184 Lysons, op. cit. i, 452. 13S Diet. Nat. Biog. Ivi, 48.

1M Pat. 8 Will. Ill, pt. viii, no. 5. I 8 ? Dugdale, Man. vi, 30.

538

��188 Lysons, op. cit. i, 453. " Ibid, i, 462.

140 Chancellor, op. cit 12 1 ; Bell, op. cit. 79.

141 Lysons, op. cit. [,462 ; Burt, Rich- mond Vestry^ 1 6.

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