Wimbledon manor house, the residence of the lord of the manor, was an English country house at Wimbledon, Surrey, now part of Greater London. The manor house was over the centuries exploded, burnt and several times demolished. The first known manor house, The Old Rectory was built around 1500 still stands as a private home, despite very nearly falling into a state beyond repair, in the 19th century. The ambitious later Elizabethan prodigy house, Wimbledon Palace, was "a house of the first importance" according to Sir John Summerson, and is now demolished.Summerson 2012, 13.. 53Wimbledon and the H-plan," Architecture in Britain 1530-1830, 4th ed. p. 36. The approach road can be traced today with the current treeline.
The manor house passed through several further iterations, being entirely rebuilt three times. From the 18th Century onwards the manor lands began to reduce in size as various owners sold off parts. What was known as the 'Old Park', an area of around 300 acres stretching westwards from the present Cannizaro House (now a hotel) and public park, was sold off in 1705. Most of the present day Wimbledon Common was also once part of the manor, with grazing rights given to tenants of the lord of the manor.
The Common was saved from enclosure and development in 1871 by a remarkably early act of conservation. 42 acres, previously part of the manor parklands, are now occupied by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club that has made Wimbledon synonymous with tennis. Further tracts of the Grade II* listed public Wimbledon Park include its present-day golf course and the lake, the latter created along with further improvements to the park by the famous landscaper 'Capability' Brown for John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer, in 1768.Jane Brown, Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, 1716-1783: The Omnipotent Magician, "Earl Spencer's Wimbledon", pp278f; she notes that the architectural historian Dorothy Stroud located the approximate site of the house on upper Home Park Road, near its intersection with Arthur Road.
Early history Until 1328, Wimbledon manor formed part of the manor of Mortlake. In 1364, Simon Islip, the Archbishop of Canterbury, gave the demesne lands to Merton Priory. Wimbledon was among the possessions of the church forfeited by Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1397. On the accession of Henry IV, Arundel was restored, and the archbishops continued to hold the manor of Wimbledon until 1536, when Thomas Cranmer, then archbishop, handed the manor and advowson to Henry VIII, as part of the Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, who then granted them to Thomas Cromwell. In 1540, Wimbledon manor was taken back from Cromwell on his death by the crown and annexed to Hampton Court. Henry VIII gave it to his queen, Catherine Parr, in 1543. After her death in 1548 the manor remained in the Crown until 1556, when Queen Mary granted it to Cardinal Reginald Pole as part of the Counter Reformation. Queen Elizabeth I seized it back and gave it to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1576 who sold it to Sir Thomas Cecil the same year .
The Old Rectory
The Old Rectory, Wimbledon's first known manor house and its oldest surviving residence, originally known as the Parsonage House, was commissioned by the church in the early 1500s and is Grade II* listed. The house was once moated, and adjoins the grounds of St Mary's Church. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the former rectory manor and its "Parsonage" or "Rectory" house, compulsorily purchased from the church and vested in the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, in 1536, were on his downfall in 1540 seized by Henry VIII who gave them to his sixth and last wife Catherine Parr in 1543. On 20 December 1546, in the months prior to his death, during a tour of his Surrey estates, the King was overcome by his various ailments and was unable to continue on to his Palace at Whitehall, so he stopped for three days at Catherine's house. In 1550, the house became a grace and favour home for William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. Described by one of Cecil's biographers as "not luxurious, but adequate", a survey from 1649 describes The Old Rectory as "A two storey house with a large dining hall, a withdrawing chamber, a parlour and little chamber, and extensive service quarters. A spiral staircase to the first floor with ten chambers and five closets, with five garrets in the roof".
By 1720, it was known as The Old Laundry House, presumably for the Cecil house built in 1588, next door (see below). The house was uninhabited when Sir Theodore Janssen bought the manor in 1717 (see below) and who allegedly pulled down the south wing and restored the remainder of the house. By 1861, the house was a near ruin when it was sold as part of Wimbledon Park (but not the manor), by Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer, to the developer, John Beaumont (see below). Beaumont restored and extended The Old Rectory, repaired the exterior, transformed the interior, laid out the grounds and planted the famous fig walk. His successor, Samuel Willson, who bought the house for £6,000 in 1882, carried on the works, adding two-storey drawing-room wing and installing carved-oak doors and English, Flemish and Italian chimney pieces. In 1909 the house was purchased by marine engineer Matthias Jacobs, who enlarged it considerably with help from his brother, an architect, who designed a new single-storey billiard room, a large service wing to the north and a study extension to mask the chapel. In 1923, Thomas Lethaby purchased the house and he concentrated on embellishing the interior. The drawing room was fitted with oak panelling from the Chantry House, Newark, an elaborate plaster ceiling based on one at Knole House, and a grand fireplace.
The Lethabys sold the house in 1947. In 1953, Russell Brock, later Baron Brock of Wimbledon, an eminent cardiologist, bought the house for £13,750. The Brock family sold it in 1978 and the kitchen garden was sold and developed for housing known today as Rectory Orchard. The Old Rectory was then bought by an Iraqi entrepreneur and philanthropist, Basil Faidhi. Faidhi had fled Iraq for Britain and though he spent vast sums restoring the house with assistance from English Heritage, he also created a basement discothèque for his daughter, Nina, and a bar. In 1992 Faidhi commissioned Wimbledon historian Richard Milward to write a history of the building: The Rectory – Wimbledon’s Oldest House.
In 1994, the astrophysicist, songwriter and lead guitarist of the rock band Queen, Brian May, paid £4 million for the house, with the intention of living there with his partner and later wife, the long-running BBC TV soap opera EastEnders actress Anita Dobson. In 2006 May sold The Old Rectory for £16 million to an Italian architect-owner Antonella Carminati and her husband, who initiated further works with the help of the architect Sir Donald Insall. In 2012, the Carminatis put The Old Rectory on the market for £26 million. The house standing in acres, was sold in June 2013 for an undisclosed sum to Ian Taylor.
Cecil Wimbledon
Sir Thomas Cecil, later Earl of Exeter, had connections with Wimbledon manor, before he bought it in 1576, for he had lived there when he was a child, in The Old Rectory. His father, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, had tenure of the house as a grace-and-favor residence by the Crown. Whilst Sir Thomas did own The Old Rectory, as it came as part of the manor, he decided to build a grand new Wimbledon manor house which was to be known as Wimbledon Palace. This was built next door to The Old Rectory and completed in 1588, England's Annus Mirabilis.In the late 17th century the antiquary John Aubrey noted the inscription over the gate Extructae sunt hae AEdes Anno Mirabili 1588 quo Classis Hispanica hostiliter, sed frustra, tentavit Angliam, that is, "These premises were erected in the Miraculous Year 1588, when the Spanish fleet, with hostile intent, attempted in vain [the conquest of] England." (Aubrey, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey vol. 1, p14, quoted in William Abraham Bartlett, 1865. The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Wimbledon, Surrey, p63). It was a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. Sir Thomas' son Edward Cecil was made 1st Viscount Wimbledon on the basis of this seat. Edward's sarcophagus sits within the Cecil chapel at St Mary's Church, Wimbledon, near the site of his demolished home.
The site, which was near the village of Wimbledon, was near the top of a high hill, astride the upper part of what is now Home Park Road, with extensive views northwards over the present day Wimbledon Park, above a steep slope that was dramatically terraced with massive retaining walls. The house was built on a modified H plan, with a slightly recessed central range facing south, and on the north, a central entrance between deep flanking wings, with matching staircase towers in the inner corners. An informally arranged service wing, not part of the symmetrical design, lay to the west. The entrance court, essentially a deep gated terrace entered from the sides, lay 26 steps below the upper cour d'honneur, which could be approached only by a monumental axial staircase with paired helical flights rising from a central raised landing. Wimbledon's series of terraces and axial stairs and its hilltop site was "inspired presumably" by the Villa Farnese at Caprarola.Summerson 1963. loc. cit.
The estate stood within a day's ride of Westminster, making it eminently suitable for an active courtier; there, the Cecils entertained Queen Elizabeth I for three days in 1599.John Gough Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 2 (London, 1823), p. 440, the Kingston 1599 churchwardens' accounts include: "Paid for "mending the wayes, when the Queen went from Wimbledon to Nonsuch, 20d". John Thorpe's undated plan of Wimbledon's ground floor and forecourts of ca 1609,Thorpe's notebook in the Sir John Soane Museum is published as Sir John Summerson, 1966. The Book of Architecture of John Thorpe in Sir John Soane's Museum, T113, 114; a schematic rendering is Summerson 1963, fig. 9. suggests that they were about twelve acres in extent, divided among eleven separate spaces, featuring plantations, walks, and parterres, laid out asymmetrically on the sloping site.Roy Strong, The Renaissance Garden, p. 61: Janette Dillon, The Language of Space in Court Performance, 1400-1625 (Cambridge, 2010), p. 54.
During the libel trial of Anne Lake Cecil, Lady Ros in 1618, evidence was submitted that a servant overheard the Countess of Exeter in the great chamber. It was said that James VI and I visited to check the acoustics.Carole Levin, 'Anne Lake Cecil Rodney', A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen (Taylor & Francis, 2016), p. 34. The house was damaged in 1628 by the accidental igniting of gunpowder stored there.John Stow, Annals, sub 1628. The glories of this house, after repairs had been effected, were concentrated in the long Gallery, one of two in the house, which was richly painted and marbleized, no doubt by Francis Cleyn, who was responsible also for the exterior that was painted en camaieu in tones of yellow and burnt ochre.Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, vol. ii, p. 128; John Aubrey, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, posthumously published ms, noted by Lysons 1792.
King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria