UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER A Country House or a House in the Country? A study of country houses in the New Forest and their residents, c.1851 to c.1923 Catherine E. M. Glover MA in Regional and Local History and Archaeology FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES September 2012 This independent study has been completed as a requirement for a higher degree of the University of Winchester. UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER ABSTRACT A Country House or a House in the Country? A study of country houses in the New Forest and their residents, c.1851 to c.1923 Catherine E. M. Glover MA in Regional and Local History and Archaeology FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES September 2012 This independent study has been completed as a requirement for a higher degree of the University of Winchester. This is a study of the country houses of the New Forest and their residents, based primarily on contemporary histories and guidebooks, sales notices, trade directories, newspapers, and census records. The aims were, firstly, to determine when and where the houses were built, compiling a gazetteer of information about their size and other characteristics; and, secondly, by examining the backgrounds of the people who built, bought, sold, or rented them, to determine to what extent the nouveaux riches, whose fortunes were based on industry, trade, commerce or the professions were joining the traditional land-owning classes in their enjoyment of a country lifestyle. Was the increase in their numbers part of a process of suburbanisation? Was the New Forest an extension of the ‘retirement belt’ of the South Coast? To what extent were these houses thought of by their residents as traditional ‘country houses’ or were they rather the ‘houses in the country’ of modern times? Methodologically, this is a case study in using records that are widely available on the Internet or in country record offices and local studies libraries. 2 3 Table of Contents List of Figures 5 List of Maps 6 List of Tables 7 Acknowledgements 8 Abbreviations 9 Introduction 10 Chapter 1. Methodology 16 Chapter 2. Location and Chronology 15 Chapter 3. Sizes, Facilities, Attractions and Styles 46 Chapter 4. Conversions, Building Leases, and Letting 57 Chapter 5. Residents 68 Conclusion 80 Appendices Appendix A. Gazetteer 87 Appendix B. Houses by Area and Date 112 Appendix C. House Sizes 114 Appendix D. House Facilities and Styles 122 Appendix E. Residents and their Property 162 Appendix F. Residents and their Backgrounds 179 Bibliography 212 4 List of Figures Figure 1.1. A page from the original ms of Georgina Bowden-Smith’s memoir 17 Figure 1.2. OS County Series 1:2500, showing details of Lyndhurst 19 Figure 1.3. Property record 22 Figure 1.4. Person records. 23 Figure 1.5. Property-person data-entry view. 23 Figure 1.6. Property-person results view. 24 Figure 2.1. Canterton estate: plan showing lots for sale, 1887. 34 Figure 2.2. The Glasshayes estate, 1895. 37 Figure 3.1. Sales notices for Malwood, 1925 and 1927. 46 Figure 3.2. Acreage attached to ‘new’ and ‘rebuilt’ houses 49 Figure 3.3. Room numbers in ‘new’ and ‘rebuilt’ houses 50 Figure 3.4. Sales notices for Boldre Grange, 1921 and 1929. 51 Figure 3.5. Sales notices for Stydd House, 1928. 53 Figure 3.6. Littlecroft. 56 Figure 4.1. Glasshayes from the lawn at the rear. 57 Figure 4.2. Ground plan of Glasshayes. 58 Figure 4.3. Malwood, showing the old lodge. 61 Figure 4.4. Sales notice for Bramble Hill Lodge, showing the east elevation. 62 Figure 4.5. West elevation of Bramble Hill Lodge. 62 Figure 4.6. Plans for improving Whitley Ridge Lodge. 63 Figure 4.7. Plan for a house at High Coxlease. 64 Figure 4.8. Plan showing Holmfield and its grounds. 66 Figure 5.1. Littlecroft, Emery Down, home of Morton Kelsall Peto. 72 5 List of Maps Map 2.1. Boundaries of the New Forest. 26 Map 2.2. New Forest walks, sites of keepers’ lodges, and ‘private lands’. 28 Map 2.3. Communications in the New Forest. 30 Map 2.4. Areas in which houses are located. 31 Map 2.5. Distribution of country houses in the northern New Forest. 32 Map 2.6. Distribution of country houses around Lyndhurst. 35 Map 2.7. Distribution of country houses in Lyndhurst village. 36 Map 2.8. Distribution of country houses in the southern New Forest. 38 Map 2.9. Distribution of country houses in Brockenhurst village. 39 Map 2.10. Distribution of country houses in the Boldre area. 40 Map 2.11. Distribution of country houses in the western New Forest. 42 Map 2.12. Distribution of country houses in the south-eastern New Forest. 43 Map 2.13. Distribution of country houses in Beaulieu. 44 6 List of Tables Table 2.1. Land in the New Forest. 26 Table A.1. Houses in alphabetical order with brief histories 87 Table C.1. Houses in alphabetical order with acreage, number of rooms, etc 115 Table C.2. Sizes of ‘new’ and ‘rebuilt’ houses in order of building date 120 Table C.3. Number of bedrooms by house size 121 Table C.4. Number of bathrooms by house size 121 Table D.1. Houses in alphabetical order with facilities, architecture and pictures 123 Table D.2. Facilities offered 160 Table E.1. Residents and property 162 Table F.1. Residents and their backgrounds 180 Table F.2. Total residents in each background category 207 Table F.3. Number of residents in each category with at least 20 rooms or at least four bathrooms 208 Table F.4. Number of residents in each category with billiards rooms, tennis lawns or courts, or glasshouses 209 Table F.5. Wealth at death 210 7 Acknowledgements I am grateful to Richard Reeves at the Christopher Tower New Forest Reference Library whose enthusiasm for and knowledge of New Forest history seem to have no limits, to the staff at the Hampshire Record Office, and to my supervisors, initially Dr Mark Allen and latterly Professor Michael Hicks, for their advice and support. I must also thank Anthony Pasmore, who led me to Mrs Georgina Bowden-Smith’s memoirs and the Bennet annuary and diary, the receptionists at Retail Manager Solutions Ltd, who let me photograph Castle Malwood house, and Julie P. Moore whose talk on her work on Hertfordshire was so stimulating. Finally, my gratitude goes to Richard Hoyle for his inspiration and encouragement, and especially his patience on those long walks in the New Forest, hoping not to get arrested while peering with me over hedges in an attempt to photograph – or even see – the surviving houses. 8 Abbreviations DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan. 2008) [www.oxforddnb.com] DS Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest. F 10 The National Archives series entitled ‘Forestry Commission and predecessors: Director of Forestry for England, Correspondence and Papers, New Forest’ HCC Hampshire County Council Proc. HFCAS Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society HRO Hampshire Record Office MFH Master of Foxhounds NFRL Christopher Tower New Forest Reference Library OW Office of Woods OS Ordnance Survey VCH Victoria County History 9 Introduction Many gentlemen have their houses in its interior parts; and their tenants are in possession of well cultivated farms. For tho the soil of New-forest is, in general, poor; yet there are some parts of it, which very happily admit culture. William Gilpin, 17911 The landscape of the New Forest today comprises woodlands and open heath, with villages often bustling with activity, all now more or less suburbanised. The eyes and cameras of visitors are drawn towards ponies grazing on the unfenced common and pretty cottages. Less often associated with this landscape are its country houses. From the late eighteenth century, and the publication of William Gilpin’s Remarks on forest scenery in 1791, interest in the area as an attractive place to visit and to live in grew.2 If one walks in the Forest today, especially near the villages of Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, and Burley, but also in more remote locations, one is aware of the existence of many substantial pre-First World War houses, set beyond lawns and concealed by hedges, with lodges, gates, and carriage drives. This aspect of the New Forest has rarely, if ever, been remarked upon. This dissertation is the first attempt to describe what we should understand as a process of rural suburbanisation. From only a handful of country seats in 1800, the study finds that the number of substantial houses in the area had increased by 1920 to well over 100. Although most of them survive, many as hotels, schools and nursing homes, or divided into flats, these houses have never been studied as a group, nor their builders and residents identified. The geographical scope of the study is the nineteenth-century ‘perambulation’ of the Forest, the area within which common rights could still be exercised. The chronological scope roughly coincides with the period between 1 W. Gilpin, Remarks on forest scenery… illustrated by the scenes of New Forest in Hampshire, ed., S. Lyall (3 vols, 1791, repr. 1973) III, 38. 2 Gilpin, Remarks, III, 38. 10 the Deer Removal Act, 1851, and the transfer of Forest administration from the Office of Woods to the Forestry Commission, following the Forestry (Transfer of Woods) Act, 1923. But this study is about neither common stock keeping nor forestry, important though both those activities were. It is about the origins of the Forest in its ‘non-productive’ phase, as it started to become a rural escape from urban life.