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Friends of Woking Palace |
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Hoe Place part four |
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In 1823, C & S Greenwood wrote in their ‘Surrey Described, being an enumeration of the seats and residences of the nobility, clergy etc’, A spacious, handsome, ancient mansion, with beautiful gardens and pleasure gardens in which is erected a very high tower for prospect, where died the Countess of Richmond, mother to Henry VII, the last of the family of Plantagenet, now the residence of Henry Grant!
According to Edward Ryde, whose diaries are in the care of the Surrey History Centre and who lived in Poundfield House, now demolished, opposite the Grange in Old Woking, Hoe Place was one of only three houses in the parish in the early 19th century which were removed from the category of farm house the other two being the Hermitage, long since replaced by the housing estate of that name, and Beech Hill in Mayford. He also notes in his diary on 24th May 1870 that Hoebridge Place has been bought by William Wainwright for £11,500.
There is a memorial in St Peter’s to Alexander Robertson who died on 17th December 1856 aged 77 having lived at Hoe Place for 33 years. He is said to have built Weylea next to the church.
The report in the Collections of the Surrey Archaeological Society of a visit by members of the Society in 1874 to Woking and Pyrford mentions a reception at Hoe Place as follows:
Having fully explored Pyrford House, the company returned to Hoe place, Woking. Here the visitors inspected the fine painted staircase and painted chamber. The work is after the style of that at Hampton Court, and is supposed to be the work of Verrio, the artist, who executed the former. The subjects are taken chiefly from the Greek mythology, and the grouping shows considerable skill and effect. The painting of the figures is, however, in some points at fault, and the colouring is rather high in many cases. The painting is executed on panelling, and must have been a work of no small labour and time. In the painted chamber Mr. James Wainwright briefly described the work, and gave its history as far as known.
The mansion, which is of large and handsome proportions, was greatly admired. It was erected in 1708 by the last of the Zouch family, chiefly, it is said, of the materials of the old manor house. Up to some years ago a beacon tower, of use when the district was in olden time more of forest and wild than it happily is now, stood on an eminence, but it has disappeared, like the Zouches who erected it.
and later
The company next visited the conservatory, which is rich with several Egyptian tablets in alabaster, presented by the Right Hon. A. H. Layard. The “Museum” adjoining, with its curiously planned stained windows, attracted attention. It was erected in the Tudor Gothic style by a late proprietor, and it is supposed was intended for a museum, but the idea was never carried out.
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