Norbury Park
Encyclopedia
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
near Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
and Dorking
Dorking
Dorking is a historic market town at the foot of the North Downs approximately south of London, in Surrey, England.- History and development :...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, which appears in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086. The manor was also known as Northbury for some time.
A small Bronze Age hoard consisting of two palstave axes
Palstave
A Palstave is a type of early bronze axe. It was common in the mid Bronze Age in north, western and south-western Europe. In the technical sense, although precise definitions differ, an axe is generally deemed to be a palstave if it is hafted by means of a forked wooden handle kept in place with...
and a scabbard chape dating from around 1150-1000 BC was discovered in 2003 in woodland on the western side of the park. The park also contain an important grove of yew trees used by Druids for rituals and ceremony. They are some of the oldest trees of Great Britian.
The Park was owned for two centuries by the Stydolf family and the diarist John Evelyn
John Evelyn
John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...
records a visit in August 1655 to both Box Hill, Surrey
Box Hill, Surrey
Box Hill is a summit of the North Downs in Surrey, approximately south west of London. The hill takes its name from the ancient box woodland found on the steepest west-facing chalk slopes overlooking the River Mole. The western part of the hill is owned and managed by the National Trust, whilst...
and Norbury Park, which was then owned by Sir Francis Stydolf. Sir Francis' son Richard, who was created a baronet
Stydolph Baronets
The Stydolph Baronetcy, of Norbury in the County of Surrey, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 24 December 1660 for Richard Stydolph, subsequently High Sheriff of Surrey in 1667. The title became extinct on his death in 1677....
by Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
subsequently inherited the estate and on his death it passed to his daughter, who married Thomas Tryon of Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
. The estate remained in the Tryon family until 1766 when Charles Tryon (father of William Tryon
William Tryon
William Tryon was a British soldier and colonial administrator who served as governor of the Province of North Carolina and the Province of New York .-Early life and career:...
the Governor of North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
) sold the estate to William Locke, a London art critic. Locke was responsible for the abandonment of the original site of the manor house on the floodplain of the River Mole and the construction of the current house, designed in 1774 by the architect Thomas Sandby
Thomas Sandby
Thomas Sandby was an English draughtsman, watercolour artist, architect and teacher. Along with his younger brother Paul, he became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and was its first professor of architecture...
. Locke commissioned the Irish landscape artist George Barrett Sr. to decorate one of the main reception rooms.
Locke died in 1810 and his family left Norbury Park in 1819. Ebenezer Fuller Maitland, the former MP for Wallingford
Wallingford (UK Parliament constituency)
Wallingford was a constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.It was a parliamentary borough created in 1295, centred on the market town Wallingford in Berkshire . It used to return two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons; this was cut to one in 1832, and...
purchased the house in around 1822, exchanging it for Park Place
Park Place, Berkshire
Park Place is a historic Grade II Listed country house and gardens in the civil parish of Remenham in Berkshire, England, set in large grounds above the River Thames near Henley, Oxfordshire.-History:...
in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, with Henry Piper Sperling. Sperling remained at Norbury Park for 24 years and was responsible for developing the gardens around the House, including the building of Weir Bridge over the River Mole, which still stands today and is Grade II* listed.
The estate was purchased in 1850 by Thomas Grissell
Thomas Grissell
Thomas Grissell was an English public works contractor who was responsible for constructing a number of prestigious buildings in England.-Early life and education:...
. It was home to Leopold Salomons JP
Leopold Salomons
Leopold Salomons was a city financier and company director active in the City of London in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Salomons was born into a British Jewish family, but it has been suggested that he later converted to Christianity...
by 1911. He gave Box Hill
Box Hill, Surrey
Box Hill is a summit of the North Downs in Surrey, approximately south west of London. The hill takes its name from the ancient box woodland found on the steepest west-facing chalk slopes overlooking the River Mole. The western part of the hill is owned and managed by the National Trust, whilst...
to the nation in 1914. Salomons died on 23 September 1915. The Norbury Park estate appears to have been partly broken up by the executors of Salomons' will. The House, stud farm and 634 acres of parkland were purchased by Sir William Corry in September 1916. In August 1922 he sold the property to Sir Edward Mountain
Sir Edward Mountain, 1st Baronet
Sir Edward Mountain, 1st Baronet was the founder of Eagle Star Insurance which became one of the largest insurance companies in the United Kingdom.-Career:Educated at Dulwich College, Edward Mountain initially joined a Lloyd's underwriting firm...
, the chairman and managing director of the Eagle Star Insurance Company
Eagle Star Insurance
The Eagle Star Insurance Company plc was a leading British insurance business. It underwrote the full range of risks, including fire, accident, marine, motor, life, contingency and Pluvius insurance...
.
Surrey County Council
Surrey County Council
Surrey County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Surrey in England. The council is composed of 80 elected councillors.The council is controlled by the Conservative party.The leader of the council is David Hodge....
purchased 1340 acres of Norbury Park in July 1930 for £85 000 to protect the land from development. The parkland remains the property of the council today and is managed on their behalf by the Surrey Wildlife Trust
Surrey Wildlife Trust
Surrey Wildlife Trust is a Wildlife Trust in Surrey, a county in South East England. The Trust's vision is for a living landscape in Surreythat is rich in wildlife and valued by all. It is the only organisation in Surrey that cares for all forms of wildlife in the county.Surrey Wildlife Trust is...
.
Marie Stopes
Marie Stopes
Marie Carmichael Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of birth control...
, the British scientist and writer, lived at Norbury Park House from 1938 to 1958. She had been an active proponent of sexual education and birth control in the early twentieth century; her book Married Love, published in 1918, was the first sexual manual written in language simple enough to be accessible to a wide public and in 1921 she opened the first birth control clinic in London. On her death in 1958 she bequeathed the Park to the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
, of which she was a member. The house was subsequently sold to Philip Spencer, an industrialist.