Sutton Place, north-east of Guildford in Surrey, is a large Grade I listed Tudor prodigy house built c. 1525Harrison, F.(1893) estimates after much research 1523-25 and must be taken as most reliable; Manning, vol. 1, p. 136, gives 1529-30; Aubrey, History of Surrey, 1673, vol.3, p. 228, gives 1521 by Sir Richard Weston (d. 1541), a courtier of Henry VIII.
It is of importance to art history in showing some of the earliest traces of Italianate Renaissance design elements in English architecture. In modern times, the estate has had a series of wealthy owners, initially J. Paul Getty, then the world's richest private citizen,Guinness Book of Records, 1966, p. 229 who spent the last 17 years of his life there. It is currently owned by a discretionary irrevocable trust created by an Uzbek Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov. A definitive history of the house and manor, first published in 1893, was written by Frederic Harrison (d. 1923), jurist and historian, whose father had acquired the lease in 1874.
Architecture
Historical assessment
Bindoff (1982) stated: Harrison (1899) stated it to be "a landmark in the history of art",Harrison, preface vii and "a cinquecento conception in an English gothic frame".Harrison, p. 2 He identified it as "one of the first houses built as a peaceful residence, with no thought for defence...one of the first country houses in the modern sense, instead of an imitation castle...Weston perceived that the Wars of the Barons were over, that a gentleman might live at his ease under protection of law and the king's peace".Harrison, p. 5 Weston was certainly daring in his choice of eye-catching decoration above his front-door, for which he surely risked being ridiculed by his manly friends, including the king himself: innocent loving children at play: the amorini. Was this a signal by an avant-gard Sir Richard to his visitors, many of whom must have been valiant and experienced soldiers, that his house was to be a haven where love and play were de rigueur, not the old-fashioned militaristic conversations and behaviours? What a different message this was to that placed above the gates of Dante's Inferno: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".
At Sutton, the defensive towers and turrets of the old castles and fortified manors have been reduced to mere pilasters, covered with decorative terracotta, caricatures of their former selves, perhaps as symbols of a deliberate rejection of defensive elements by Weston. The symbolism of the short stretch of crenellated parapet on the roofline above the front-door, one of the most potent aspects of the old defensive fortress, has been disarmed and cancelled-out by the almost jarring sight of a covering of yet more playful amorini. A more deliberately dissonant juxtaposition would be hard to imagine, yet that is what Sir Richard ordered to be erected. Sutton is clearly a house with a message to proclaim, which would not have been, could not have been, missed by its visitors.
Description
The house is built of red brick and was originally of four blocks enclosing a quadrangle exactly 81 ft. 3 ins. square.Harrison, F, p.171 The northern block or wing was demolished in 1782, giving the house its present open appearance of a U-shape, the two surviving flanking wings forming a courtyard looking to the east. An unusual feature is that, due to the extreme flatness of the site, the entire ground floor of the whole house stands on the exact level of the soil, so that no step exists for entering the house on any side.Harrison, F, p.172 It is set within a separately listed formal parkland at the end of a long driveway.Map created by Ordnance Survey identifying listed formal parks and buildings, courtesy of English Heritage
Terracotta elements The decorative elements made from moulded terracotta on the facade are in an Italian Renaissance style. They consist of designs made from 40 to 50 different moulds,Harrison, pp.161–2 most strikingly comprising a panel of two rows of amorini immediately above the entrance door. Such Italianate influence had perhaps never before been seen in English architecture, and is thought to have resulted from designs seen by Weston during his travels on embassies to France, where he might have seen some of the newly built chateaux on the Loire. With very minor exceptions, no stone was used in the building and decoration of Sutton Place, only brick and terracotta.Harrison, p.153. Exceptions include stone tops of semi-octagonal turrets flanking the main entrance door (p.162, note 1) Thus, the bases, doorways, windows, string-courses, labels and other dripstones, parapet, angles, cornices, and finials are all of moulded terracotta. Such usage is only found in two other contemporary English buildings, East Barsham Manor in Norfolk and Layer Marney Tower in Essex. Its use was, however, rapidly abandoned in England, to appear again only in the Victorian era. The terracotta proved very hard-wearing and was described by Harrison in 1899 as "sharp and perfect" in condition. The terracotta has, however, undergone, in the 1980s, a £12 million refurbishment, involving much replacement, by the specialist firm Hathernware Ceramics Ltd, which used 18 different colour blends of clay to match the original variety of shades. Prior to that, it seems the only new elements were from 1875 when 10 new terracotta mullions and window-frames made by Messrs Blashfield of Stamford, from moulds of existing windows, replaced sash-windows inserted in the 18th century. Two completely new small windows were, at the same time, created from terracotta in the gables of the quadrangle.Harrison, pp.162-3
Other terracotta decorative elements include framed monograms of "R W", the builder, and reliefs of his rebus of the concave-ended barrel, probably signifying a "waisted-tun". The "tun" was a play on the last syllable of Weston. The concave-ended barrel is sometimes shown between two goose heads, the significance of which is unclear, unless it be the French word Oie plus -"tun". Willam Bolton (d.1532), prior of St Bartholomew's in Smithfield, is also known to have used the rebus of a "tun", as can be seen in his surviving oriel window within the church in the form of a barrel with a bolt of a crossbow passing through vertically. Another recurring terracotta element is a double bunch of grapes, thought by some to represent hops. Harrison believes the story of Weston having been "the King's brewer" unfounded and "a vulgar story". Similar hop-like bunches of grapes also feature at Layer Marney, and there is no evidence of Lord Marney, captain of the royal bodyguard, having been similarly a brewer.
Terracotta panels
Painted glass
The hall windows contain fine painted glass, much installed contemporaneously with the building of the house. These consist of shields of arms and other rebuses. There are, in total, 14 windows containing 92 separate lights, each containing a shield or quarry of painted glass. They are of different dates and quality, belonging to three separate epochs, but mostly relating to the builder's family. Some glass predates the house and is believed to have come from the earlier manor house of Sutton. Harrison states certain to be "of extraordinary beauty and rarity"..."of the finest painted glass of the time of Henry VIII".Harrison, pp.200-201 Apart from family arms, the arms of King Richard III and emblems of the Roses, Red and White are also shown; all relate to the Battle of Bosworth at which Edmund Weston, Governor of Guernsey, father of Sir Richard, is thought to have assisted Henry Tudor by providing the use of money, ships or even a contingent of soldiers.Harrison, p.44-5
History Sutton Manor, within which the Tudor mansion is situated, appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sudtone. It was held by Robert Malet. Its Domesday assets were: 3 hides; 1 mill worth 5s, 3 ploughs, of meadow, woodland worth 25 hogs. It rendered £5. The previous manor house stood about a quarter of a mile from the present house, on the hill now occupied by St Edward's Chapel and Vine Cottage.Harrison, p.152
Within Sutton Place was once the blood-stained ruff of St Thomas More and a crystal pomegranate that once belonged to Queen Catherine of Aragon. The pomegranate emblem of the Queen features as a decoration in several places within the house, which suggested to Harrison that Weston certainly built the house before she was divorced by Henry VIII in 1533, and possibly before 1527 when it would have been known by his courtiers, such as Weston, that the King had turned his affections away from Catherine towards Anne Boleyn.Harrison, p.151
Queen Elizabeth visited Sutton Place on 26 September 1591 after staying at Farnham Castle.John Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 3 (London, 1823), p. 121.
Ownership Sutton Place remained in the Weston family and families related to it by marriage until 1919, although let out for part of the time. The family was recusant from Tudor times, which precluded it from taking an active part in public life. Successive occupants thus lived as retiring country gentlemen of reduced means, which meant that the house escaped remodelling through the ages.
Sir Richard Weston (d. 1541) was granted the manor by Henry VIII on 17 May 1521.Harrison, p.57 By the time of his grandson, Sir Henry Weston, the Weston family's fortunes waned somewhat, and they lived more at Clandon.Harrison, p.13 Henry's grandson, Sir Richard Weston (1591–1652), was a canal builder and pioneering agriculturalist, and the last prominent member of the Weston family in English public life.Harrison, p.133 The last of the Westons was Melior Mary Weston (1703–1782), a spinster, last of the Weston name. She bequeathed all her estates to her very distant cousin, John Webbe, on condition that he adopted the name and arms of Weston.Harrison, p.143 John Webbe-Weston erected a marble tablet to her memory in Holy Trinity Church, Guildford where she was buried in the Weston Chapel built by Sir Richard Weston the founder.Harrison, p.144 In 1782, the year he inherited Sutton Place, he demolished the dilapidated gatehouse wingHarrison, p.145 He completed renovations in 1784, having rejected proposals of the architect Bonomi to remodel the house in an Italianate or neo-classical style. His second son, Thomas (d. 1857), was the last of this family, having married but died without issue.
In 1857, Sutton Place was inherited by John Webbe-Weston's grandson Francis Henry Salvin (d. 1904), of Croxdale Hall, County Durham,Burke's Landed Gentry, 1937, pp.1979-1980, Salvin of Croxdale an authority on falconry, and author, with William Brodrick, of Falconry in the British Isles (1855). He leased the house out to tenants, including the family of the historian Frederic Harrison, who wrote the definitive history of Sutton Place. The Harrison family spent much care and money on preserving the house.Harrison,op.cit., dedication From 1900, the tenant was Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (d. 1922)Sutton Place, from: www.oldwoking.org/Sutton
On the death of Francis Salvin in 1904, the estate passed to his niece's son Philip Witham (1842–1921), a solicitor.Catholic Who's Who & Yearbook, 1908, p.429 Witham had never held vacant possession of Sutton Place and sold it on the expiry of the Northcliffe tenancy in 1918. His wife Louise died in 1945; in July that year, the Weston family estate papers were presented to Surrey Archives by Mrs D. Wolseley, of Guildford.Surrey Archives, G65
Weston Chapel, Holy Trinity Church, Guildford The "Weston Chapel" stands attached to the south side of Holy Trinity Church, Guildford. Its external walls are of a decorative chequerboard pattern of flint and freestone squares. It was built c.1540 by Richard Weston (1465–1541) of nearby Sutton Place, primarily as his intended burial place, as his will, dated 15 May 1541,National Archives PROB 11/29 directs that his body be: