Stoke Park The estate’s owners from c1040 to 1581

The Stoke & Poges Families The Hungerford Family Owners of Stoke Park from 1066 to 1331 Owners of Stoke Park from 1441 to 1485

fter the victory at Hastings in 1066 William Fitz-Ansculf was obert, Lord Hungerford (commonly called Lord Moleyns) given use of the estate by King William I. In the Domesday inherited Stoke Park by reason of marriage to the fifteen A Book of 1086 he is listed as holding the Manor (one of R year old Alianore, daughter of William, Lord Moleyns. his many estates) as tenant “in capita” (direct from the Crown). Prior to this it was owned by Siret, the vassal Like his father in law he was a man of action and fought for (servant) of the Saxon King Harold. the last Lancastrian King, Henry VI during the final campaigns of the Hundred Years War. In 1453 he was Ansculf’s descendents called themselves de Stoke and captured by the French at Castillon but was released seven later they purchased the estate from the Crown. In c1120 years later after £3,000 was paid in ransom. On his return Hugh de Stoke is registered as owner of the estate and to England he fought in the Wars of the Roses with the following Richard de Stokes death in 1262 Humbert de Lancastrians who were defeated at Towton Fields in 1461. Poges (Pugeys) became guardian of his daughter, Amicia. He was beheaded in 1464 when the Yorkists, led by Edward IV, defeated Henry VI at Hexham. Robert’s body is buried in Humbert’s son, Sir Robert, a knight of the county for the north aisle of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury. Edward I, married Amicia in 1291. Their marriage also gave the village its current name, Stoke Poges. The Manor had Robert’s son, Thomas, was also beheaded in the Tower of been called “Stoke Ditton” until 1322 and appears as such in London in 1469, on the orders of Edward IV. His daughter the Domesday Book. Mary married Sir Edward Hastings.

It was their granddaughter, Gille (the last de Poges) who Edward IV took his retribution and the Stoke Park Estate which married the Treasurer to King Edward III, Sir John de Molines, had continued by descent since 1086 was fortified to the Crown in 1331. to become parcel of the honour of Windsor.

Henry, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon K.G. The de Molines Family The Hastings Family Owners of Stoke Park from 1331 to 1441 Owners of Stoke Park from 1485 to 1581

n 1331 Stoke Park was inherited by the wealthy nobleman Sir John de Molines through his wife Gille he Hastings, like the Hungerfords, supported the House of Lancaster and they shared the same de Molines. In the same year he obtained a royal licence to fortify the Manor House, and enclose fate when Sir Edward Hastings’ father was murdered in 1484 by the command of the Yorkist King Ithree woods. He also rebuilt St. Giles church creating a boundary around the estate. TRichard III; all his lands were forfeit to the Crown. However, King Henry VII, after overthrowing Richard at Bosworth in 1485, restored to Edward all his family’s lands and also the lands of Sir Thomas Sir John combined the imposing duties of Marshal of the King’s Falcons, Supervisor of the Queens Hungerford, Knt., his wife Mary’s father. Those lands included Stoke Park. Castles and Treasurer to the eighteen year old King Edward III (1312 - 1377) who had ascended the throne in 1327. As treasurer Sir John had financed the King’s attempt to claim the French throne which Sir Edward and Mary had one son, George, who inherited Stoke Park in 1506, and one daughter, Anne. resulted in the beginning of the Hundred Years War in 1338. This claim was not formally withdrawn George was a faithful servant of Henry VIII. He took part in the expedition to France made by the King until 1802. in 1513 at which time Terouenne and Tournai were restored to the English Crown. George advanced to the Title of 1st Earl of Huntingdon in 1529 and was one of the Peers who subscribed the letter to Stunning victories at Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) led by the King’s eldest son, Edward (1330 - Pope Clement VII, intimating to him, that if he did not comply with King Henry in the business of the 1376), known to history as the “Black Prince”, gave way to uneasy peace in 1360. The peace had been divorce between the King and Catherine of Spain, he must expect that they would shake off his partly forced by the outbreak of the plague in 1348 which lasted for two years and killed half of the supremacy. George was also one of the 26 peers whose judgement condemned Anne Boleyn to the population of England. block in 1536. George married Anne, daughter of Henry, Duke of Buckingham, and they had five children, Francis (who succeeded him to his honours), Edward, Thomas, Henry and William. On his After failing to raise the required money (£100,000) from Antwerp moneylenders for the King’s seige of death in 1543 he was buried in the chancel of St. Giles Church. Tournai in 1340, Sir John was charged with failing the King in his extremity and was thrown into the Tower of London. His lands and goods were seized until his release in 1345. He was arrested again in Francis Hastings 2nd Earl of Huntingdon became General and Commander in Chief of the King’s Army 1355 and imprisoned at Nottingham Castle where he later died. In 1359 John’s son, William, obtained in 1549. After retiring from the Army he spent a considerable time improving the Stoke Park estate. He his father’s lands under a settlement upon him for life, from the King. rebuilt the Stoke Park Manor House in l555. He also built a chapel adjoining St. Giles Church, where his mother and father lay buried with images of them in stone. He placed a vault in the Chapel for his Sir John’s great grandson, William, was raised to the peerage. Lord William’s son, also called William, brother, William, and when he died in 1560 he was buried there with a plate of copper representing his was killed in 1429 fighting for Edward III’s Lancastrian great-grandson Henry V in the Hundred Years image, in harness, with the garter and a memorial in writing to him in his arms. Francis left the estate War (which was partly instigated by his ancestor Sir John) defending a bridge during the siege of to his son Henry. Orleans. He was the last of the male de Molines and so the estate passed to William’s son-in-law Robert, Lord Hungerford. Henry Hastings, the 3rd Earl, fell upon hard times and had to sell the property in l58l to the Crown. He was the last person to inherit Stoke Park in a line of descent that had continued for 515 years when his Both Sir John and Lord William’s tombs are at St. Giles Church, Stoke Poges. ancestors had forced the Saxon Prince Siret from his land in 1066.

The Manor House at Stoke Park, built by the 2nd Earl of Huntingdon in 1555. St. Giles’ Church is also shown. One third of the Manor can still be seen today. The Church also survives but without its spire which was destroyed in the 1920’s. The Penn Family Owners of Stoke Park from 1760 to 1848

ohn Penn (1760 - 1834), a poet, a scholar and prolific patron of layout of 1750 which had been designed for the Manor House. Humphry architecture was responsible for most of what can be seen at Stoke Park Repton was selected and he created a new plan in 1792. Jtoday including the Mansion, the monuments to Sir Edward Coke (1800), Thomas Gray (1799) and the Repton bridge (1798). Repton and Wyatt were only part of the “Committee of Taste” John created which included Joseph Farrington (Painter), Nathanial Richmond Thomas Penn, the son of the founder of Pennsylvania (William Penn), had (Landscape Artist) and William Mason (Landscaper). With the help of these purchased the estate in 1760 and virtually governed his lands in America men he constantly reassessed the success of the house and the landscape. from Stoke Park for the next 15 years. John inherited the estate in l775. His judgements were based on his obsession with seeing forms in their Having spent a considerable time away from Stoke in Geneva and America, scenic context and this led to the landscape, house and monuments all John returned to Stoke Park in l789 with £130,000 from the new being adjusted according to the view they presented. Commonwealth in compensation for the family’s twenty-one million acres in Pennsylvania (less than 10% of what he claimed it was worth). A pension John was a remarkable man in many ways. He was High Sheriff of of £4,000 a year was also granted by the British Parliament to compensate Buckinghamshire in 1798, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army and from 1802 for the inadequacy of the initial payment. MP for Helston, in Cornwall. He was also an author of some repute. One of his books, an ‘Historical Account of Stoke Park’ was published in John decided that the old Manor House, built in 1555, was too dilapidated l8l3. Penn, although unmarried himself, also felt perfectly competent to for repairs to be made and decided instead to build a new house in a tackle the problems of those who were, and in l8l7 founded a “matrimonial prime spot on rising ground in the centre of the parkland, with good views society”, which had as its object the improvement of domestic life for of the surrounding countryside including Windsor Castle. He loved Stoke the married. Park for its strong historical and literary associations, consequently one wing of the old Manor House was left intact for its association with In l834 John died at Stoke Park and was succeeded by his brother, Granville Thomas Gray, the poet, and Sir Edward Coke. Penn. Granville died at Stoke Park in l844. The Penn fortune died with him and his difficulties were illustrated by his doctor who put his cause of death The new Mansion was begun in l789 but many alterations and additions down to “trouble”. His son Granville John Penn could not afford to live at were made before its completion by James Wyatt in l8l3. Penn also Stoke Park and so he moved to Stoke Court and let the estate for four years commissioned a new landscape to replace the existing ‘Capability’ Brown before selling it to Henry Labouchere in 1848.

John Penn.

James Wyatt Designer of the Mansion

ames Wyatt (1746 - 1813), son of a Midlands builder, was architect to George III and the most celebrated English Jarchitect of his day. His maxim was that it was the artist’s role to create and not to simply copy, even when dealing with the order of the ancients and he demonstrated this at Stoke Park.

Although the commission was large John Penn had used the virtually unknown Robert Nasmith (a pupil of Adam) for the original rectangular house in 1789. It was covered in within a year but due to bad design it cost £10,000 more than it should have. Wyatt liked a problem and presented himself as a man who could handle practical difficulties. He was commissioned and although the exterior limits of the main block were fixed by Nasmith’s work Wyatt had a free hand and the house soon became unrecognisable to those who had seen the first structure. The sequence of its growth is illustrated here.

His patron’s obsession with the views it presented and offered led to a mansion that was more dramatic than great, in palatial style rather than domestic tradition. The South Colonnade (built in 1801) was based on the Greek Doric type of architecture. This order was continued to the East and West Front by 1813.

By 1798 discussions started about the monuments to be erected and Wyatt had to create a full scale model of one of them, the Gray’s Monument, before an instruction to proceed was given by John Penn. View of the South Front of Wyatt’s Mansion at Stoke Park by Edward Dayes c1795.

Humphry Repton Re-designer of the Landscape

umphry Repton (1752 - 1818) was the last of the three outstanding designers who dominated the English HLandscape Movement from about 1720 to 1820. Of the designs by Repton’s predecessors, William Kent and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, few plans and drawings survive; but Repton used his skill as an artist to prepare his now famous ‘Red Books’.

Humphry Repton was born in 1752 at Bury St. Edmund's and moved to Norwich during his childhood. His father set him up in a textile business, but he was not temperamentally suited to it and in 1778 he left.

After trying various careers and moving to Essex he finally settled to the profession of landscape gardener in about 1789. ‘Capability’ Brown had died in 1783 and Repton regarded himself, and was regarded by others, as his successor. Much of his early work was in Norfolk, and his second commission was at Holkham in1789 for the Coke family, who had owned Stoke Park from 1598 to 1644.

When he was consulted he explained and illustrated his proposals in beautifully finished little volumes bound in leather and these became known as the ‘Red Books’. Altogether about 400 of them were produced. The one for Stoke Park survives (although it is not at the Mansion) and it shows that his initial designs in 1792 were constantly reworked during that decade. The only features of ‘Capability’ Brown’s 1750 design to survive the Repton changes were the two lakes and the cascade that can still be seen today. 1813 print of the view from the Gray’s monument to the Mansion, the St. Giles Church, the Coke Monument and the Manor House. Lord Taunton Owner of Stoke Park from 1848 to 1863

enry Labouchere (1798 - 1869), President of the Board of Trade, Whig M.P. and later Lord Taunton H(l859) purchased the Stoke Park estate in l848. A famous radical and supporter of the Reform Acts he was a great rival of Gladstone, the Prime Minister of the time. He once said “I don’t object to Gladstone always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, but merely to his belief that the Almighty put it there”.

Further alterations were made to the Mansion and the gardens during Taunton’s time to provide better rooms to display his remarkable collection of art.

The west garden was enlarged and new paths were created in 1848 to better display Taunton’s collection of sculpture. The balustrade around the house with its urns was also built by Taunton in 1850.

Lord Taunton and his wife Mary were great collectors of neo- classical sculpture and reliefs. Many of these works of art are now in museums around the world following Lord Taunton’s heirloom sale of l920.

Of his great collection none of the sculpture has remained at Stoke Park although some reliefs have been retained in the great hall. These were created by the Danish artist Bertell Thorwaldsen (1770 - 1844). It was also during Taunton’s occupancy of Stoke Park that Landseer, Queen Victoria’s favourite artist, used to visit and paint pictures of the estate’s famous deer herd.

Taunton sold the estate to the successful businessman Edward Coleman in 1863. Lord Taunton. Sir Edwin Landseer.

Sir Edwin Landseer Visitor to Stoke Park

dwin Landseer (1802 - 1873) was born in East London, the Eson of John Landseer, the engraver. He was an infant prodigy, with nine of the drawings he created at the age of 5, in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

At the age of 12 he exhibited his first animal studies at the Royal Academy. A year later he entered the Royal Academy School. Landseer was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in l826, became a Royal Academician in l83l and was knighted in l850. He was greatly admired by Queen Victoria who acquired a large collection of his paintings.

He was a master of painting dogs and deer and once dissected a lion in order to master its anatomy, as is apparent from the magnificent lions he sculpted in l858 for the foot of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, London.

Sir Edwin often visited Stoke Park during Lord Taunton’s (Henry Labouchere) and later Edward Coleman's ownership and it was at this time that part of the ground floor of the house was beautifully furnished as a studio. Sir Edwin painted many pictures of the herd of deer in the park including the famous “Monarch of the Glen” and “Running Deer”.

“The Monarch of the Glen” by Sir Edwin Landseer. The Gayer Family Owners of Stoke Park from 1656 to 1724

Following the death of Lord Purbeck (Sir John Villiers), Stoke Park was sold to John Gayer in 1656 for £8,564. He died the following year and left the estate to his brother Robert.

Robert was created one of the Knights Companions of the Order of the Bath at the coronation of King Charles in 1661. He married twice, had six sons and a daughter with his second wife Mary Rich.

Sir Robert died in 1702 and was succeeded by his eldest son, also called Robert, who sold the estate to Edmund Halsey in 1724 for £12,000.

Sir Richard Temple. Humphry Repton.

William III and Mary II Visitors to Stoke Park in 1701

William of Orange (1650 - 1702) was the champion of the Protestant cause in Europe. He was invited by Parliament to replace his deeply unpopular Catholic father in law, James II. In 1688 he landed in Devon at the head of a large army to start the “Glorious Revolution”. James fled without a fight but despite a warm welcome in London William refused to take the throne by right of conquest.

The importance of the “Glorious Revolution” was that the monarchy became constitutional and Parliamentary; the struggles between Crown and Parliament were over with the idea that the King was divinely ordained and set apart at an end.

William was not universally popular, however, and Jacobite plots to restore James continued throughout his reign. Indeed his visit to Stoke Park was only a little better than Charles I’s who had been held at the Manor House for two weeks in 1647 before being sent to London to be tried and executed.

William was visiting Stoke Poges and wished to see the Manor House. But Sir Robert Gayer, the then owner, in spite of his wife’s expostulations, refused to let him in. Sir Robert had been made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II and was a supporter of the then exiled Stuarts.

Sir Robert is reputed to have said of King William:

“He has got possession of another man’s house already, and he shall never enter mine”

Just what the King said on this occasion is, perhaps happily, not recorded, though we are told that he was forced to go away without setting foot inside the house.

William died a year later in a hunting accident, when his horse put a foot in a mole hole and threw him. This gave rise to the Jacobite toast “to the little gentlemen in black velvet.” William III. Sir John Villiers Owner of Stoke Park from 1644 to 1656

Sir John Villiers.

he Second Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers (1608 - 1656), was the brother of John Villiers, Viscount TPurbeck, to whom Stoke Park devolved following the death of his mother-in-law, Lady Coke in 1644. The Duke owned some of the largest estates in England and it was he who had the original Buckingham Palace King Charles I. built in London. In his “History of England”, T.B. Macaulay wrote “Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure who had turned to ambition as a pastime”.

Sir John distinguished himself in the reigns of King James I and Charles I and although he survived the upheavals of the Civil War his estates were forfeit and Charles I was held prisoner in the Manor House in 1647. In l653 George, his brother, was even being mentioned as a possible bridegroom for Cromwell’s own teenage Charles I daughter, Mary. It was seen as a gesture of reconciliation with the Royalists and would have allowed Villiers to reclaim his estates but George would have none of it. Held prisoner at Stoke Park in 1647 Although Sir John’s estates were restored to him years later his brother’s refusal of marriage rebounded on him. Cromwell’s soldiers separated him from his bride, Mary Fairfax, daughter of the protector’s old comrade and sometime commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and threw him into the Tower of London. Mary and her toke Park has been owned by Kings and it has also entertained them but the Stuart mother visited Cromwell’s wife and daughter several times to plead for the newly-weds to be reunited but the King Charles I (1600 - 1649) was entertained in the worst of circumstances. In Cromwells were ill inclined to help those who had once scorned them. SJanuary 1647, six months after Charles surrendered himself to the Scots, they handed him over to the English parliament commissioners in return for £400,000 army Sir John (who changed his name from Villiers to Danvers) died in 1656 and the Manor was purchased by John back pay. He was taken to London via York, staying at Stoke Park as a prisoner on the way. Gayer. Charles was a weak child but he grew up to be courageous and high minded. He told Archbishop Laud in l623 that he could never be a lawyer because “I cannot defend the bad, nor yield in a good cause”. Unfortunately he also had poor judgement, strong prejudices and the tactlessness common to his family. Early in his reign, which began in l625, Charles encountered difficulties with Parliament. He summoned and dissolved it three times until 1629 when he governed by personal decree.

Without Parliament there was no money. He overcame this by selling monopolies and unpopular measures such as the “ship money” demanded initially from ports and then inland towns. However, he eventually had to yield to the inevitable and Parliament was summoned again in l640.

In l642 Charles tried to arrest M.Ps in the Houses of Parliament. This incident marked the end of any hope of compromise and later that year Charles’ standard was raised at Nottingham. It has been estimated that the parts of the country controlled by Parliament contained two thirds of the country’s population and three quarters of its wealth and with the annihilation of the Royalist troops at the battle of Naseby by Oliver Cromwell’s new model army in l645, the King’s defeat was inevitable.

Whitelock reports in August, l647 “Army quartered at Colnbrook and the King at Stoke”.

During the summer of l647 several places in Buckinghamshire received hurried visits by the King while Cromwell was waiting for a response to his compromise settlement “the Heads of Proposals”. In July he was at Windsor and Caversham, he then went to Maidenhead to meet his children and was then traced through to Wooburn and Latimer and lastly to Stoke where he remained a prisoner in the Manor House until the l4th August, when he was removed to Hampton Court and was received as a prisoner in the custody of his own subjects. After his escape in 1648, and the subsequent crushing of new Royalist resistance, he was taken to London to be tried and was executed at the Palace of Westminster in 1649. He was arraigned before a tribunal consisting of l35 judges, but he refused to plead. Sentence was passed, by sixty eight votes to sixty seven and so by one vote Charles lost his head.

There is a Coat of Arms on one of the walls of a room in the existing wing of the Manor House which is reputed to have been painted by Charles I during his imprisonment at Stoke.

This portrait of King Charles I’s children was owned by John Penn (owner of Stoke Park from 1775 to 1834) and was on display in the Mansion until 1848. The painting was re-purchased in 1997 and is once again on display in the Mansion. Sir Edward and Lady Coke Owners of Stoke Park from 1603 to 1644

n Englishman’s home is his castle” is Sir Edward Coke’s (1551 - 1634) the King’s belief that he had the divine right to interfere with the courts. Coke’s “ most famous remark. Stoke Park was his castle. Coke argument was that the King should respect the common law. It A was a remarkable man, an eminent lawyer and was Coke’s championing of the common law over the adroit politician who became the speaker of the House King’s “divine” rights that earned him the title “Father of of Commons, and later the first Lord Chief Justice of Parliament”. Coke continued his struggle for England in 1613. After being suspended from that parliament over the King until his death in l634, even post in 1616 he was made Sheriff of being committed to the Tower of London for a brief Buckinghamshire. period in 1621.

In l598 Sir Edward leased the Stoke Park Sir Edward married Lady Hatton whose estate from the Crown. In l60l Sir Edward husband was the nephew of Sir Christopher entertained Queen Elizabeth I at Stoke Hatton who had preceded him as tenant of presenting her with “jewels and other Stoke Park. Theirs was a turbulent gifts to the amount of twelve hundred marriage. Although remarried to Sir pounds”. It is documented in the list of Edward she retained the surname of her the Queen’s presentations that she gave former husband. The story goes that she one of Coke’s children a piece of gold only married him because she was with plate on the occasion of their christening. child. On one occasion on a false report of Upon Elizabeth’s death in l603 Sir Edward his death she set off to take possession of the purchased the estate freehold from the estate but on meeting his physician at Crown. Colinbrook heard the mortifying news of his recovery. In l603 Coke prosecuted Sir Walter Raleigh proving that he had “an English At one time Sir Edward locked up his wife face but a Spanish heart”. As a and daughter Frances until the latter consequence Raleigh spent l3 years in agreed to marry Sir John Villiers, whose the Tower of London. brother was the King’s favourite George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Frances In l605 Coke was knighted by King succumbed and Sir John, later to become James I and later in the year prosecuted Viscount Purbeck, came into possession of the gun powder plotters, a group of radical Stoke Manor on the death of Lady Coke in l644. Catholics, trying to kill the King and blow up parliament, who had been caught with 20 Sir Edward died in 1634 leaving an estate of eleven barrels of gun powder under the Houses of thousand pounds per annum. Sir John Villiers, his son Parliament. Guy Fawkes and the three other plotters in law, once said of him that his sons “would spend his were hung, drawn and quartered. estate faster than he got it”, to which Coke replied “they cannot take more delight in the spending of it that I did In February l609 Coke clashed with King James I over in the getting of it”.

Sir Edward’s coat of arms can be seen on the Coke monument and on the gates on either side of the Mansion.

In l800 John Penn erected a monument to honour Sir Edward. It is column of Roman Doric design. Sir Edward Coke. The statue was created by the Italian sculptor Rossi. This photograph was taken in 1906. Elizabeth I Owner of Stoke Park from 1581 to 1603

fter winning the Wars of the Roses Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, had restored Stoke Park to the Hastings family as a reward for their loyalty to the A House of Lancaster. However the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon was forced to sell the estate in 1581 to clear his debts. The Crown purchased it and the estate was let out to two of Elizabeth’s favourites. First to Sir Christopher Hatton from 1581 to 1591 and then to Sir Edward Coke from 1598.

Queen Elizabeth (1533 - 1603) was adept at selecting capable advisors and her two tenants can be counted among their number. Others included Hawkins, Howard, Walsingham, the Cecils, Leicester, Essex, Burleigh and the Gilberts.

With the help of these capable men she survived the many plots surrounding Mary Queen of Scots. She also countered the threat from the French and the Spanish culminating in the defeat of the Armada in l588.

England was in a sad state when she ascended to the throne in l558 at the age of only 23. The treasury was empty, Calais had been lost, the French king had one foot in Edinburgh and the country was torn by religious differences.

However, Elizabeth, the last of the Tudor monarchs, was a remarkable woman; an intelligent pragmatist and an outstanding stateswoman. She stabilised a divided England and set it on course to become a leading world power leaving the country secure and largely free from religious troubles.

It is noted in the Queen’s presentations for the year l600 that she presented a piece of gold plate to one of Coke’s children on the occasion of her christening. During the mid- l600’s the room in the Manor House in which Queen Elizabeth I slept contained her portrait but this, together with pieces of furniture, was sold.

Elizabeth only visited Stoke Park once, in l601, when Sir Edward Coke indulged her love of jewels and beautiful clothes by reputedly giving her one thousand two hundred pounds worth of gems.

Queen Elizabeth I.

Sir Christopher Hatton Tenant of Stoke Park from 1581 to 1591

ir Christopher Hatton (1540 - 1591) occupied Stoke Manor as a tenant of the SCrown Estates. Sir Christopher, who with his “bushy beard and shoestrings green” was, the poet Gray tells us, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and had far more effect on her maidenly composure than any threat of Pope or Spaniard. He first gained favour with Elizabeth I by his skill in dancing of which he was apparently desperately fond!

He became, amongst other positions, Vice-Chamberlain, Captain of the Guard and one of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy-Council. Lastly he became Lord High Chancellor of England. It was he who was sent to gain the consent of Mary Queen of Scots to submit, as a subject, to trial. He was also a Knight of the Garter, the second from Stoke to figure in the Queen of Scots episode.

Being also a great friend of the learned he was elected Chancellor of Oxford University.

He fell from the Queens favour, however, and died unmarried at the age of 5l in the year l59l, and was buried in the upper part of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Sir Christopher Hatton. Edward John Coleman Owner of Stoke Park from 1863 to 1883

dward Coleman (1834 - 1885) bought the estate in l863 from Lord In the Mansion house he accrued a vast collection of furniture, art, sculpture and Taunton. He had been a broker on the Stock Exchange and owned a tapestries. Many of his pictures were painted by Edwin Landseer, a friend of Ecoalmining business but retired around the same time that he Coleman’s who had visited the estate for many years where a studio was acquired Stoke Park, for which he paid £95,000. provided for him in the house.

Edward took a great interest in local politics and was a staunch Whilst resident at Stoke Park Edward had his own stall in St. Giles church supporter of the Conservative Party. He was a magistrate for the County which he paid for to be lit by gas, a modern innovation of the day. of Buckinghamshire; his qualification dating from l870. He also became High Sheriff of the County in l879. The local hunt met at Stoke Park and Edward and his wife, Gertrude (pictured here), entertained lavishly inviting many distinguished He knew Disraeli well and it was the Prime Minister who guests, including the Prince of Wales. supported Coleman’s application for membership of the Carlton Club. Edward was one of the guests who attended the Edward owned the adjoining estate of Duffield where his parents banquet given by the Houses of Commons and Lords for the lived until their death. They are both buried in St. Giles church. He Earl of Beaconsfield (Disraeli) and the Marquis of Salisbury on their also owned a house in Grosvenor Square. return from the Congress in Berlin in l878, bringing “peace with honour”. Unfortunately, due to enormous losses on the Stock Exchange and a depression in the coal trade, he went into bankruptcy and was forced At Stoke Park, Edward lived in princely style and spent a large income to sell Stoke Park. Disraeli lived at Hughenden Manor just outside with a lavish hand. He carried out extensive improvements to the High Wycombe and when he heard Edward was seeking a buyer for Mansion, installed miles of iron fencing and planted more than a the estate he wrote “I learn with sincere sorrow that you are about to thousand young trees in the grounds. He also improved the farm cease to be a Buckinghamshire squire”. on the estate introducing the most modern equipment of the day; bought more fallow deer and restocked the park with In failing health, due to the anxiety over recent business and financial red deer in 1865. It is reported that these improvements cost more worries, he then moved to the Isle of Wight where he died in 1885. Edward than £200,000. and Gertrudc were not buried in the family tomb at St. Giles church. Mrs. Coleman.

The Mansion from the North lake as it looked during Edward Coleman’s ownership. Note the flag flying from the top of the Observatory. Edmund Halsey & Lady Temple Owners of Stoke Park from 1724 to 1760

dmund Halsey, M.P. for the London Borough of Southwark, bought the Manor from the Gayer power base he built was so formidable that four of his relatives went on to become Prime Minister family in l724 for £l2,000. The Stoke Park Estate came into Lord Cobham’s possession (Sir Richard within fifty years. ETemple) on his marriage to Anne Halsey (Edmund’s daughter) in l729. After Sir Richard’s death in 1749, Lady Cobham returned to Stoke Park, her former home, until her Sir Richard (1675 - 1749) was a member of the Temple-Grenville family whose was the most striking death. It was Anne who introduced Lancelot “Capability” Brown to Stoke Park when he left Stowe in example of the rise and fall of a dynasty in English history. From gentleman farmers they became Dukes l750. John Penn in his history of l8l3 wrote “a plan for modernising Stoke was drawn by another genius, in only eight generations, only to fall in the ninth and be extinguished in the male line in the tenth. the celebrated Brown”.

Sir Richard was at the apex of the family fortunes. A General under the Duke of Marlborough and a Whig It was during Lady Cobham’s time at Stoke Park that she read Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” politician, George I rewarded him with a Peerage in l7l4. Baron Cobham, after more successful which was shown to her by Gray’s friend, Horace Walpole. Having read the “Elegy” Lady Cobham campaigns became Viscount Cobham in l7l8. With the help of Anne’s fortune he became the richest man expressed a wish to meet Gray whose mother and aunt lived nearby at West End Cottage and this was in England at the time of his death, having turned his principal estate, Stowe, just outside Buckingham the start of Gray’s association with Stoke Park. Lady Cobham died in 1760 and her executors sold the in North Bucks, into what has often been described as the greatest work of art in Europe. The political estate to the Penn family.

Sir Richard Temple (Lord Cobham) (in the bath chair) entertaining friends at Stowe.

Lancelot Brown Thomas Gray Designer of the landscape Regular visitor to Stoke Park

he landscaping genius of Lancelot “Capability” Brown homas Gray (1716 - 1771) is one of England’s greatest (1715 - 1783) is still renowned some 200 years after poets. He was born in l7l6 to Philip and Dorothy Gray. This death. He was born in the small village of TThomas was the fifth child of twelve and the only one Kirkharle in Northumberland. His father died when Lancelot to survive infancy and his parents. He attended Eton College was four-years old leaving his mother with six children to in l727 and Cambridge University in 1734. In l739 he started support. on the Grand Tour with his friend Horace Walpole, son of the Whig Prime Minister. At the age of sixteen he left school and started work at Kirkharle Hall for Sir William Loraine. During In l74l Gray’s father died and his mother moved to live with Lancelot’s seven years at Kirkharle Hall he learnt all her sister, Mrs Rogers, at West End Farm (now Stoke Court) the basic practicalities of estate improvement from Sir in Stoke Poges. It was the village churchyard which inspired William. him to write his “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”. It was here that the “rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, their Lancelot moved south from Northumberland in l739, it was humble and obscure lives over; far from the madding Thomas Gray. thought the climate would suit him better as he suffered crowd’s ignoble strife. Their sober wishes never learn’d to from asthma. Hence his concentration of landscaped estates stray”. “Rather than scorning such folk, those who account in the south such as Stowe, Stoke Park and Sutton House. themselves great should recall that the paths of glory lead During the time that he was commissioned to landscape but to the grave”. The “Elegy” was started in November l742, Stowe he was recommended to many influential people but was not completed until June l750. locally by its owner Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham. A copy of the “Elegy” was sent to Lady Cobham who lived in In l750, following the death of Viscount Cobham, the Manor House. She was impressed and expressed a wish Viscountess Cobham returned to her family estate at Stoke to meet Gray and this visit resulted in Gray’s writing “The Park and commissioned Lancelot to landscape the grounds Long Story” describing the Manor House and its previous of her new home. owners. Between l747 and l757 numerous publications were produced by Gray and at the end of l757 the office of The central part of Brown’s new landscape was two Poet Laureate was offered to Gray but he refused. serpentine lakes created from five quadrangle shaped ponds with a cascade connecting the two. These are the main In l768 Gray was awarded a Professorship of Modern History features to have survived, the later landscape was designed at Cambridge by the Duke of Grafton although he wrote to by Humphry Repton in the 1790’s. Horace Walpole stating that “I shall be but a shrimp of an author”. Gray died in l77l at the age of 54. His body was By l764 Lancelot Brown’s reputation as Britain’s leading taken to London and then to Stoke Poges churchyard and on landscape architect was confirmed when he was appointed the 8th August, was interred in the same vault as his mother Master Gardener at Hampton Court and Gardener at St. and aunt. A memorial to Gray was erected in Poet’s Corner James’. in Westminster Abbey, London. Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. Mr & Mrs Wilberforce Bryant Owners of Stoke Park from 1887 to 1908

toke Park was bought by Wilberforce Bryant (1837 - 1906) in l887 after it had been on the market for 4 Syears. He was the last owner to use the estate as a private residence. Bryant spent thousands of pounds on improvements to the house and the gardens. He created many of the west garden features including the Sunken Garden and planted many of the trees and shrubs that can be seen today.

He was Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1902 and was also the “Bryant” of the Bryant and May Match Company which had a factory in nearby High Wycombe.

Wilberforce was the grandson of James Bryant, a starch and polish-maker fromTiverton, Devon. His father, William, set up in business with Francis May, a tea dealer in l843 and they became provision merchants. It was in l850 that the Company became agents to import matches from Sweden under an agreement with a gentleman named Carl Lundstrom. In time it was not possible to import sufficient supplies of matches to satisfy demand and therefore in 1861 Bryant and May opened their own factory at Bow in London. Both Bryant and May were Quakers.

Wilberforce, being the eldest of four sons, became the Senior Partner at the age of 37, on the death of his father in July l874. He increased the output of the factory by installing new machinery and advertising. Having gained export markets to America and Australia the company expanded and took over numerous, smaller match- making companies and eventually exported to many other countries.

Wilberforce died in l906 at the age of 69, 32 years after taking up the Directorship of the Fairfield Works at Bow. After failing to sell the estate at auction, Mrs Bryant leased the majority of the ground floor, the basement and the grounds to the new Stoke Park Club in 1908 and continued to live in the rest of the mansion as her private residence. Wilberforce in the Winter Garden (now the Orangery).

The Sunken Garden created by Mr. Bryant in the 1880’s. Photographed in c1900.