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Friends of Woking Palace |
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Sutton Place part one |
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To contact us:email: askus at woking-palace.org |
Registered Charity No.1100852Copyright © 2008 Friends of Woking Palace
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TQ012535 LBI 1525 AOS 1525 WBC TM222 Occupier Algernon Hicks.FT Lord Northcliffe Garden Walls & Pavilion to west LBII C17 WBC Stable block 10 yds west LBII CI8, C20 WBC Pevsner says Sutton Place is ................ the most important English house of the years following immediately after Hampton Court The residence of the Weston family. Sir Henry Weston d1592 was succeeded by his son Richard d1613, his grandson Richard d1652 and his great grandson John d1690. Richard was described as a 'recusant convict' in the Lay Subsidy of 1628 and John as a recusant in that of 1641. Lady Weston appears in the Hearth Tax return of 1664.
With death of Melior Mary Weston in 1782 the blood of the Westons in both male and female lines was extinct after eight generations. Mary Melior bequeathed Sutton Place to a distant relative, John Webb of Stanton Court, Hereford on condition that he took the name Weston. This John Webb Weston died in 1823 and was succeeded by his son, John Joseph Webb-Weston who was followed by his son, another John Joseph in 1840.
John Joseph Webb-Weston married Lady Horatia Elizabeth Waldegrave daughter of the Earl of Wardegrave in 1847. He died of cholera in 1849 during the siege of Komorn in Hungary and left the estate to his wife unless she re-married. In 1854, however, she re-married and the Sutton estate passed to Thomas Monington Webbe-Weston an uncle of John Joseph Webb-Weston.
In 1857 the male descendants of John Webb Weston were no more and the estate went to his daughter’s son Francis Henry Salvin of Croxdale, Co Durham. Captain Salvin’s tenure was a long one from 1857 to 1904. When Francis died in 1904 he was succeeded by his niece’s son Philip Witham. His wife Louisa was the last catholic owner of Sutton Place.
Francis Salvin did not live at Sutton Place and the house was let to three successive tenants: Caledon Alexander, the racehorse owner, who kept his famous racehorse Thunderbolt at Sutton, Sydney Harrison whose brother, Frederick wrote The Annals of an Old Manor House and Alfred Harmsworth the first and last Baron Northcliffe. At the end of Northcliffe’s tenancy in 1918, the house was sold to the Duke of Sutherland.
Most of the above information has been gleaned from St Edward’s, Sutton Park, Guildford by Dr David Willis and The Rev. Gordon Albion and The Catholics of Sutton Park by Brian Taylor.
According to Annals of an Old Manor House by Frederick Harrison, the definitive source of information about the house and its history, it is possible that some of the fine glass at Sutton Place was brought from Woking Palace. It may be partly by chance, and possibly by some removal of painted glass from the old manor house at Woking, but it is singular that today we find in the windows and quarries of the hall arms, emblems and devices of a great number of historic persons and families, all of whom had some connection with the past history of the manor who had owned it, or had been visitors in it, or were friends and colleagues of its owners. Amongst these may be mentioned, the Beauforts, Edward IV and Richard 111, Henry VII and Henry VIII, the Earls of Arundel, Earls of Derby and Dukes of Norfolk, Archbishop Bourchier, Catherine of Aragon, Sir Reginald Bray, Edward VI, Mary Tudor, Philip of Spain, Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Gardner, Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, Charles II and the Earls of Onslow.
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This photograph of the North Front is taken from St Edward’s, Sutton Park, Guildford mentioned below |