Ottershaw Park Estate

Then	Now
Enclosure Award map 1802	Annotated Ordnance Survey map 2003

This history of Ottershaw Park begins in April 1761 when Thomas Sewell (later Sir Thomas, Master of the Rolls), a barrister of Lincoln Inn Fields bought Ottershaw Farm from The Reverend Thomas Woodford, cleared it away and built the first Ottershaw Park mansion.

This was designed in Palladian style by the architect and sculptor, Sir Robert Taylor. Sewell demolished an existing farm (seen on the Roque map of 1762) and in 1764 obtained a Royal licence from George III to divert around the northern boundary of his estate the roads which passed across his land from Ottershaw to Chobham. The parkland around the house was landscaped and small lakes, some of which are still used for fishing, were made. Sewell also owned the neighbouring Manor of Stanners (or Stanyards) and Fords, and Bonseys and Durnford Farms.

In 1784 Thomas Sewell died and ownership of Ottershaw Park passed to his son, Thomas Bailey Heath Sewell, Lieutenant Colonel in the Surrey Fencible Cavalry. He in turn sold it in 1796 together with the Manor of Stanners and Fords to the son of a well known London Merchant, Edmund Boehm who improved the interior of the house and enlarged the estate between 1801 and 1804 by acquiring tracts of wasteland and allotments to the North and East on which he created extensive plantations.

Boehm built Durnford Mill in about 1800 (1797 according to Stratton) and acquired Lurkenshaw (or Twitchen) Farm. He also built in about 1805, to the design of the eminent architect James Wyatt, two Grecian-style lodges at the new entrance to the estate from where a coach road ran to the Mansion. The same architect may also have designed for Boehm the Gothic Chapel which stood North of the Mansion and which, with its 80 foot high chimney, originally served as a kitchen, bakehouse, dairy and pantry.

Edmund Boehm also owned property in St James's square, London where he and his wife Dorothy Elizabeth led a lavish lifestyle. The following account extracted from The Victoria History of the County of Surrey concerns a social event that went disasterously wrong:

"Edmund Boehm's wife was a celebrated hostess at their home at 16 St James's Square, a house they'd built on acquiring the land in 1804 from Thomas Anson, First Viscount. The house was completed in 1807 and Mrs Boehm's lavish entertainment attracted guests of the highest social calibre. This round of gaiety culminated in a party on the evening of Wednesday June 21st 1815 at which the guest of honour was no less than the Prince Regent himself. Dinner had finished and the ladies were about to take their partners for the first quadrille. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the square below and a carriage drew up containing four French eagle standards and Major the Hon. Henry Percy who emerged demanding to see the Prince. In a tattered and bloodstained uniform, he was ushered into the drawing room to hand over the standards and Wellington's Waterloo Despatch proclaiming the defeat of Napoleon. With a crowd noisily assembled in the square, the Prince Regent went on to make an announcement from the balcony. Contrary to some accounts, the occasion was not one of wholesale jubilation. The Despatch concentrated on the number of British casualties. The Prince was greatly saddened to learn the loss of those he had known personally. (This contemporary report is from someone present in the room, Emma Edgcumbe, later Lady Brownlow, in her memiors published by John Murray in 1861 -'Slight Remembrances of a Septuagenarian.')

Mrs Boehm was reportedly unhappy at the disruption to her party but disaster was to follow in 1819 with her husband's bankruptcy and the sale of No. 16. The Ottershaw property was subsequently disposed of but Mrs Boehm was able to spend her last days in a Grace and Favour apartment at Hampton Court, her recollections of that June night accompanied by a commemorative ornamental golden eagle, a present from the Prince Regent."

Ottershaw Park and estate and other properties in the vicinity were put up for auction in 1819. Ottershaw Park and Potters Park to the north were bought by Major General Sir George Wood a Lieutenant General in the Bengal Army, for £29,000. The Manor of Stanners and Fords was purchased by ?????

Like most large 18th and 19th century estates, Ottershaw Park was largely self-supporting. According to the 1819 sale brochure there were stables, a smithy, a brewhouse, 36 catacombs for wine storage, bakehouse, laundry, dairy, two farmyards with barns, two slaughter houses, wood yard, two peacheries, melon ground and pits, vinery, pinery, aviary, venison house, ice house, engine house (for pumping water into a reservoir on the roof of the house) and a flour mill at Durnford Bridge.

An account published by Prosser in 1828 describes the estate as follows:

"Ottershaw is situated on the right hand side of the road leading from Chertsey to Guildford, distant from the former place three miles, and from the latter ten. The principal entrance is marked by two neat lodges, with handsome iron gates affixed to stone pillars after a design by Wyatt. The drive conducts over a stone bridge to the mansion, which is situated on an eminence in the middle of the park, commanding an extensive and varied prospect. On the north it is sheltered by a deep plantation, and at some distance to the east, south, and west, are large ponds, or lakes, kept up with brick heads. They cover near 30 acres of land, and add much to the general beauty of the landscape.... The park ... has increased to 700 acres. The surface if pleasingly undulated, and beautifully diversified by plantations, and is in part surrounded by a ring fence. A carriage drive extends round the park to two other lodges on the Guildford Road."

Sir George died in 1824 and the Ottershaw Park passed to his son, also named George. The estate was leased in the 1830's first to Lord Belfast and then to Richard Crawshay who purchased Ottershaw Park in 1841. There is a painting dated 1838 by William Barraud of Richard Crawshay in the estate grounds. Richard was the son of the famous ironmaster William Crawshay of Cyfartha Castle; he shared in the prosperity of the family business but preferred the life of a country gentleman. A detailed map accompanying the conveyance documents of 1841 shows that the main estate had remained largely unchanged since 1819. Crawshay built a new bailiff's house, new farm buildings and new brewhouse, the latter presumed to be in The Bothy.

There is a vivid account of the estate at this time by William Keane's "The Beauties of Surrey" published in 1849. He described in detail the kitchen gardens and methods of cultivation, quality of the soil, etc.

"Ottershaw Park.... is three miles and a half S.W. from Chertsey. From the beautiful park gates of wrought iron, situated on an eminence, adorned on each side with handsome lodges embellished with figures in bas-relief, a broad approach-road, half a mile long, descends through a grove of trees to a gate (a lodge-house to the right) through the park, beside some clumps of trees up to he noble mansion of the Italian style of architecture, to the entrance-portico supported by columns of the Doric order, with a double flight of steps to the hall. This portico spans the road where carriages can enter and set down company. In front of this entrance is a Gothic building with a lofty tower, being the kitchen and other offices connected by a subterraneous passage with the house, a broad road by the stables conducts to the kitchen garden, about one acre and a quarter surrounded by walls, on one side seventeen feet high, and on the others fourteen high. The fruit trees, particularly the Peach trees, are fine examples of good treatment. The first Vinery is sixty feet long, seventeen wide, and thirteen high, planted -with black Hamburgh Vines, on a border outside thirty feet wide walled round, and composed of two thirds sandy loam, and one-third dung five feet deep; they are noble canes eight years old; the system of pruning is what may truly be called the close spur system, so close that a bud is not visible; the crops of grapes are said to have been very good. The second Vinery, sixty feet long, seventeen wide, and thirteen high, planted with Muscats, Grizzly Frontignan, &c, was in every particular like the first, with the exception of not being pruned; from the leaves to be seen, withered as they were on the three or four shoots from each joint, an impression was produced that the wood was not thoroughly ripened, but the wet season on a very wet border was a sufficient reason for such an appearance; fire-heat is seldom or never applied in the houses, and the borders are never damaged by a footstep; each house, however, is heated by two separate flues; the fire-place is at the back, the heat enters at the end, goes along the front to the middle of the house, through the middle and up a chimney to the back, so that the coolest parts of the flues run parallel across the centre, and the hottest parts are at each end of the house, where they are most wanted. In each house are two pits filled with tan in the spring, and frequently turned over when the Vines are breaking; the advantages of such a practice are well-known to all good grape growers. There is a house, sixty feet long, seventeen wide, and thirteen high, heated by hot water; in it is a pit with pillars, and a trellis on which cucumbers had been trained. The houses are entered by flights of steps, with iron railings. The Fruiting Pine pit is thirty-five feet long by sixteen wide, the Succession Pine pit, thirty-five feet long by twelve wide, heated by hot water, with broad-boarded stages at the back. The soil of the neighbourhood is a sandy loam; all parts of the garden have been trenched and manured four feet deep. The system of kitchen-garden stripping adopted here is worthy of particular notice. The Celery is planted in rows eight feet apart, and fifteen Inches from plant to plant; the Endive three feet apart; the strawberry plants in double rows, eighteen inches apart, with three feet alleys between; the Onions eighteen inches from row to row, and thinned to nine inches in the drill; the Asparagus bed is two feet high above the surface, composed of the richest soil, London dung is the principal ingredient; the stools two feet apart in the row, and three feet from row to row, broad boards being laid on the surface to walk on during the cutting season; a good plan on such rich soils, so liable to be poached by trampling on it in wet weather, and in dry weather con-solidated to the exclusion of atmospheric influences. The pleasure grounds, about four acres, extend from the house to the west through serpentine -walks by the ruins of a summer-house - by the lake of swan-like shape, with an expansive view over the fish ponds to the park beyond. The Conservatories, attached to the east and west wings of the house, are fifty-two feet long, twenty-four wide, and eighteen high, each. The whole estate is about four hundred and thirty acres, under the superintendance of Mr. Seppey."

The photographer Henry White exhibited several photographs of Ottershaw Park and Durnford Mill in exhibitions in Edinburgh, Norwich, Manchester and London between 1856 and 1860, but regrettably none are known to survive.

On Crawshay's death in 1859 the estate was bought by Sir Thomas Edward Colebrooke (1813 - 1890) Bart., MP for Lanarkshire. A detailed map accompanying the 1859 sale brochure shows a similar layout to that seen in earlier maps. Colebrooke also gave land for the building at his own expense of Christ Church in 1864 and The Junior School in 1870 and founded the Working Men's Club (now the Social Club) in the village in 1883 and was its first President. Sometime after 1868 Colebrooke pulled down the West wing conservatory of the Mansion and rebuilt the East wing, which had been an orangery, to house the kitchen and later the laundry and made various other alterations the mansion and on the estate which in 1873 was reported to comprise 419 acres. The Ottershaw Cricket Club played in the Park throughout Colebrooke's ownership after which it played atBotley's Park.

In May 1882 Ottershaw Park was leased to Reginald the 12th Earl of Meath and his wife Mary. Lord Meath was the founder of "Empire Day" and Lady Meath a philanthropist who founded several charities for the relief of poverty worldwide including founding the Meath Home (now ICAN) in 1885 in Brox Road. Poor and sick London children from one of her charities, called the Convalescent Committee, were enabled to experience a visit to the countryside and to benefit from the air free of the pollution which afflicted the capital at that time and is quoted as believing that she was “glad that they enjoyed such beauty”. In her diary Lady Meath recorded:

"Greastly impressed by the place. After dinner wandered out and thought it too heavenly. Felt very thankful to be in such a lovely spot. The nightingales were singing exquisitely."

Lord and Lady Meath moved out in November 1883 when the estate was sold to Lawrence James Baker, a stockbroker and MP for Frome. Baker also purchased Durnford Mill (1883), Lurkenshaw Farm and the Manor of Stanners and Fords (1897) all of which had previously been part of Boemhs's estate. In addition, he acquired Bonseys Farm (1888), Durnford Farm (1889), some cottages in Brox Road (1890) and at some point a cottage and land on Stanners Hill and was responsible for building cottages for his estate at Durnford and in Bonsey's Lane. Baker in turn put the enlarged estate on the market in 1907. The catalog accompanying this sale gives a detailed description of the estate and of the Mansion interior, its stables and garages, farm buildings, gardens with mature trees and fish ponds and a double tennis court and croquet lawn.

Eventually Baker sold it in two stages during 1910 to the millionaire, Friedrich Gustav Jonathan Eckstein. Together with his his brother, Hermann, founder of the famous Witwatersrand mining house of H Eckstein & Co, Freidrich had made his fortune in the South African gold mining industry. Eckstein also acquired Dolly's Farm (1914), Durnford Bridge Farm (1910) and Scotchers Farm (1910).

Eckstein immediately demolished much of the old mansion and replaced it with the present building which was built largely on the old foundations but was a more magnificent and much larger building. It was designed by Niven & Wigglesworth in Palladian style, allegedly inspired by the Krupp family mansion at Essen and is said to have cost £250,000.

An account of the estate written shortly after it's construction by J. Grant comments:

"Full advantage has been taken of a natually fine position. Facing south, the mansion, with its stone terraces, looks out over the Formal Garden, with its balustrades, flights of steps, trimly clipped yew hedges, temples and pool, to the extensive park beyond. Richly wrought iron entrance gates, with their Sphinx surmounted piers, gives access to the drive, which is taken through picturesque woods, by the park and ornamental water, until it reaches the immediate vicinity of the house, when it is carried over a stone balustraded bridge.... "

Eckstein moved in alone during 1911 with a staff comprising a valet, a butler, three footmen, a house keeper and four housemaids. There were eleven men living in The Bothy and seventeen working in the grounds. Water was supplied from an artesian well drilled in 1910 near Home Farm and still in use in the 1930's.

The clock tower at The Bothy probably also dates from this time and was possibly designed by the same architects. The existing gates between the North Lodges were replaced by Eckstein with highly ornate ones which survive, albeit in poor condition, to this date. He also erected magnificent gates at the South Lodge. Eckstein had the estate roads re-routed which involved digging a deep cutting near The Bothy and the building of a bridge.

Eckstein was obviously keen on cricket as Ottershaw Park had it's own team. In 1913 the Ottershaw side included Jack Hobbs, the greatest batsman of his time, who was for a while employed as a coach to Friedrich's son, Bernard

During World War I Eckstein retired to the top floor and made the rest of the building available to the British Red Cross as an Auxilliary Home Hospital of 24 beds staffed by nurses from Voluntary Aid Detachments. Bernard joined the 3rd East Surrey Regiment but returned in 1915 with ill health.

In 1919 Eckstein sold the estate to Miss Susan Dora Cecilia Schintz, the daughter of a Swiss nitrates milliionaire, Hans Gaspard Schintz, for £100,000 plus an additional £25,000 for fixtures and fittings, and moved to Oldlands Hall, Fairwarp in Sussex. Miss Schintz moved from Thickthorn Estate in Kenilworth which she had also inherited from her father with her mother and her gardeners Alfred Dyer and his uncle, Arthur Lawrence, together with their families. Alfred Dyer lived at one time in one of the North lodges and Arthur Lawrence lived at Rose Cottage (now Garden Court Cottage) and had responsibility for looking after the vines. There was a total of seventeen gardeners and many of them including Harry King, the head gardener and his wife lived upstairs at the Bothy.

The estate was surveyed in 1923. At this time it was described as being "... heavily timbered, possesses some delightful walks and 5 lakes .... 2 walled kitchen gardens and 21 glass houses..." and valued at only £84,500.

Miss Schintz invested heavily in risky capital ventures and lost a great deal of money and had to mortgage, and finally sell, her estates. Her financial troubles seem to have started soon after she arrived at Ottershaw as in May 1922 it was reported in the Surrey Herald that the outlying portions of the estate, some 464 acres, were to be sold at auction. As it turned out some of the land including Bonsey's Farm, was sold privately in advance of the sale in August 1922 but the remaining 326 acres failed to find a buyer. Times must have been hard for Miss Schintz as she dismissed the majority of the estate workers shortly afterwards. In 1930 Miss Schintz filed for bankrupcy and soon afterwards there were two further sales; first the contents of the mansion and surrounding buildings and farms were auctioned on 6th October 1931. Ten days after this the entire estate, recorded as covering 959 acres were offered at auction but only the outlying farms achieved a sale and later that year the remaining 432 acres were put up for sale again.

The estate was acquired 1932 by Joseph Wyatt from whom Miss Schintz had borrowed heavily, but he sold much of it in August 1932 to the Ottershaw Park Investment Company (OPIC) who had plans to develop the margins of the estate along the Woking and Chobham Roads for housing. They employed a speculative builder from Harrow, Mr. H. Pickrill, initially to build six show houses. The first was completed by March 1936 at least two more by May that year and they were completed by 1937. However, the project failed and no further houses were constructed. The houses were said to have been built using unseasoned wood from the estate. Other parts of the estate were sold to individuals. Harry King, formerly the Head Gardener stayed on as Groundsman to the College and lived in one of the cottages in Bonsey's Lane. He acquired a plot of farm land just South of the Chobham Road (Land Registry no. P92002) in about 1935.

In 1932 OPIC sold the mansion and central part of the park to Ottershaw College Ltd to house a boarding school for boys. Ottershaw College was based on a novel system of teaching which the headmaster Rev. J.G.Jeffreys had previously practiced at Bryanston School in Dorset. The boys and masters lived and studied in the Mansion, then called "School House". At first there were only a few pupils but numbers rose to 123 by 1937. In that year government inspectors were fairly critical about the school and were not at all favourably impressed by the headmaster. For a short time the school was very successful, but eventually became insolvent in 1937. With the financial help of Mr Barry Cooper, father of one of the boys, the Chertsey Public School Ltd was formed and the college survived for two more yeears. Rev. J.G.Jeffreys moved to Fulham as a preacher and a new head, Mr F.W.Manning, previously assistant master at the college since 1933, was appointed in April 1939. The College finally closed at the outbreak of war in 1939.

There appears never to have been an active college alumni society so it has been difficult to trace former pupils of Ottershaw College. Since no record exists elsewhere it is worthwhile recording details of the few that I have been able to trace. They include two film directors, John Llewellyn Moxey (1938-9) and Pat MacDonnell (-1936) and His Honour Judge Clive Calman (1939). There were a small number of boys from overseas (including Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, USA, Holland and Denmark) one of whom was John W. Castle sent in 1934 by his father (formerly Julius Schloss) in order to avoid anti-semitic persecution in pre-war Germany. John joined the British Army in 1940 and fought almost to the end of the war when his tank was blown up and he was seriously injured. Later he moved to California with his family. Another student was Walter Julius Wolfgang (1937-) a German-born British socialist and peace activist, currently Vice President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Vice Chair of Labour CND and a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition. He became an unlikely hero after cameras recorded him being forcibly ejected from the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton on September 28, 2005 during a speech on the Iraq War, in an incident that provoked much media comment and embarrassed the Labour leadership. In August 2006 Wolfgang succeeded in his bid to become a member of Labour's National Executive Committee. Professor Heinz Kurt Henisch a [Czech?] physicist was at Ottershaw College from 1938.

There are local stories about how a Luftwaffe pilot was shot down in WWII and claimed to have been a student at Ottershaw College. Another story tells how the Germans used the mansion at Ottershaw as a landmark when bombing the Vickers aircraft factory in Brooklands. There of course may be no truth in these stories.

The Ottershaw College emblem was a gryphon (which may have been inspired by the pair of these beasts which surmounted the pillars of the South Lodge gates) and the college moto was "esto fidelis" (ever faithful). There were classrooms in The Bothy and some laboratories and classrooms between the Mansion and The Bothy. At some point four new houses for masters, new laboratories and a squash court were built, and four of the six tennis courts were converted into hard courts. A log cabin near the Bothy served as a tuck shop.

The second master Geoffrey Hartley was maths teacher and in charge of the orchestra at the College. He was a talented bassoonist, composer, conductor and organiser of amateur music-making. Educated, as his father had been, at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford, he taught music and mathematics at Bryanston School and then directed the music at Ottershaw College. He subsequently worked at the Meteorological Office until retirement in 1971. For many years conductor of the Woking Symphony Orchestra, he was also a founder member in 1948 of the Occasional Wind Players; he wrote numerous arrangements and compositions for this ensemble some of which have been published. There are numerous accounts of public concerts at the college all of which appear to have been of an exceptionally high standard. Geoffrey Hartley's wife and daughter also played in the orchestra and gave instrumental lessons. The Hartley's lived in Woodwind which was built in 1935, and in 1941 Geoffrey purchased the property from Chertsey Public School Ltd.

Ottershaw College also owned Meath Cottage in Brox Road which was at first occupied by Wing Commander Fletcher, the college bursar, but later it became the college sanatorium.

Garden Court was also built in 1935 by a Major Plummer within the walls of the old estate gardens. A year later his wife, Florence Edith Plummer, acquired Garden Court Cottage.

At the beginning of the Second World War The Vacuum Oil Company (later Mobil Oil) leased the Mansion from Chertsey Public School and moved their offices there. They also leased Tanglewood (then known as Carter's Cottage) and Woodwind (at one time occupied by one of the directors, Mr Holiday).

From 1940 much of Ottershaw Park was either ploughed for crops or grazed as part of the war effort under the supervision of the Surrey War Agricultural Executive Committee who were based in Home Farm. Some requisitioned areas were not relinquished until 1954. The 1941-1943 National Farm Survey showed that much of the estate was farmed by Mr F C Smith of Addlestone while the area closest to Bonsey's Lane was owned by Mr H.C. King [presumably Harry king the former Head Gardener] and Major Coe of Windlesham Hall.

In 1942/3 Dunford Lodge, Woodwind and Tanglewood, Bramshill and possibly also Home Farm (the last two named owned by OPIC) were requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence. [??? A hutted encampment was erected late in 1942 on the site of the present Tulk House and in the grounds of Woodwind to house members of the Women's Land Army under the Warden Miss J Anderson, but initially the camp was occupied by about 30 male labourers waiting to move to other accomodation. Adjacent to the hostel was a camp of about 43 men awaiting enlistment in the RAF???.THIS MAY ACTUALLY REFER TO OTTERSHAW MEMORIAL FIELDS!?]

The woodland areas of the estate were used by the 19 Vehicle Reserve Depot (VRD) for storing vehicles as seen in aerial photographs from 1945. To improve vehicle access the estate road from the South Lodge was widened. This gave rise to the Ottershaw school boys nickname "Tank Track". To prevent lorries from becoming bogged down the ground was covered with rubble cleared from bombed areas of London. The material poisoned the ground and is thought to have eventually killed many trees. Evidence of the rubble can be seen all over the estate and particularly in the woods in Ottershaw Chase.

In 1982 the estate was sold to the developers DeltaHome Ltd for £1,510,000 who converted it into the present residential estate. The Mansion and Tulk House were converted into private apartments and The Bothy divided into 5 separate homes. The Art block was demolished and replaced by No. 22 and The Masters Common Room was replaced by The Dower House. The old entrance to the Estate at the crest of the hill on Chobham Road was closed and a new one cut through the woods opposite Tulk House. The area now referred to as Ottershaw Park consists of about 100 acres. Architect's plans from 1980 for the redevelopment of the estate show that the woodland area around the tennis courts, now part of Garden Court, was destined to provide sports facilies for the estate including changing rooms, a clubhouse and a parking area for 50 cars and served by a separate entrance from the Chobham Road.

Unable to develop the entire area and short of money DeltaHome sold more than half the land (Land Registry no.SY523717) to Mirimar Investment Trust whose trustees had close connections with the airport owner Alan Mann. In 2007 this area together with the majority of the Fairoaks Airport land (SY367110 and SY65024) held by Burbank Holdings SA, an offshore company, was sold to Erinaceous Group plc.

Also in 2007 the residents of Ottershaw Park through a new company Ottershaw Park Woodland Ltd collectively acquired the 30 acre strip of woodland along the Chobham Road (Land Registry no. SY108945) previously owned by John Winkworth. Interestingly this title number is the original Land Registry reference for the entire Ottershaw Park in 1932.