The history of Hatchlands Park

Expert curated

Exterior view of Hatchlands house with a lawn and trees in front of the house — Exterior view of the house at Hatchlands Park | © National Trust/Gary Cosham

Hatchlands Park, Surrey, is an 18th-century house with interiors designed by Robert Adam for Edward and Frances Boscawen. Prominent designers Humphry Repton and Gertrude Jekyll have shaped the park and garden. Hatchlands has been home to at least ten families, many with Irish and Indian histories. Today it houses the collection of the Cobbe family.

The first owners

The house and park are built on land which once belonged to the Benedictine monastery at Chertsey Abbey. After the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, the property passed to Sir Anthony Browne (c.1500–48) and his wife Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald (1527–90). Browne was a friend of Henry VIII and held senior roles in the royal household. Elizabeth was the daughter of the Lord Deputy of Ireland and childhood companion of Elizabeth I. Anthony and Elizabeth built a manor house on the property, probably near to the current building.

When Elizabeth died in 1590, her niece Douglas Fitzgerald (1560–1621) inherited Hatchlands. She was married to Francis Aungier, 1^st Baron Aungier of Longford (1558–1632), who became a senior figure in the British rule of Ireland and commissioner of plantations in Ulster. Their descendants kept Hatchlands as one of their English homes for the next century. From 1704, local politician Sir Richard Heath (1680–1717) owned Hatchlands.

It was sold in 1739 to John Raymond (1712–82), a brewer, and fellow Member of Parliament. Raymond sold Hatchlands to the Boscawen family ten years later.

A wistful looking stone statue of "Paris", sitting on a lichen covered plinth in the grounds of Hatchlands Park, Surrey — Garden sculpture in front of the south front of the house | © National Trust Images/Beata Moore

The Boscawen family

The current house at Hatchlands Park was built in 1756 for Admiral Edward Boscawen (1711–61) and his wife Frances Glanville (1719–1805). The architect, Stiff Leadbetter, replaced the Tudor house with a fashionable, Neo-classical red-brick mansion. Architect and designer Robert Adam created the interiors, the earliest English interior commission by him.

Frances described that Edward built the house ‘at the expense of the enemies of his country’. Edward had a distinguished military career in the British Navy, including notable victories against the French in the Seven Years War. In 1748 he had been assigned to protect British interests in India, presiding over the Siege of Pondicherry against the French.

In 1748, a Lieutenant Beamish, who served under Boscawen on the Dreadnought, gave the couple the ‘gift’ of an enslaved child. In an excerpt from one of Frances’s many letters to her husband, she describes the boy whom they named Tom Pride: ‘He is a good-natured child, about ten years old. Your son took to him immediately and whispered he should be his servant. Accordingly, he walks out in the garden with him, plays up in the nursery, waits upon him at table'. Frances occasionally mentions Tom in her letters, but his later life history is unknown.

The son Frances mentions is probably Edward Hugh Boscawen (1744–74) who became MP for Truro in 1767. After the Admiral’s death in 1761, Frances spent most of her time in London and became involved in the intellectual Blue-Stocking Society. The Boscawen family used Hatchlands less and less and eventually sold the property in 1770.

The Sumner family

The next owner of Hatchlands was William Brightwell Sumner (1720–91) who was a qualified lawyer who worked for the East India Company from 1744. He served as Deputy Governor General to Robert Clive when he was Governor of Bengal. William had a lucrative career in India and benefitted from large bribes – a fact Clive later made public to prevent William succeeding him. William resigned from the Council of India in 1767 and used his fortune to acquire Hatchlands in 1770. During his time in India, he married Catherine Holme (1736–77) and several of their children were born there. In England, they made Hatchlands one of their main homes, and William held the post of High Sheriff of Surrey.

William’s son, politician George Holme Sumner (1760–1838), commissioned the architect Joseph Bonomi to improve the house and the landscape designer Humphry Repton to draw up a scheme to improve the grounds.

The parkland we see today is largely Repton’s and is recorded in one of his ‘Red Book’ proposals. Repton recommended planting the screen of trees along the Epsom Road (A246) so that Hatchlands would be 'changed from a large red house by the side of a high road, to a Gentleman-like residence in the midst of a park’.

The Rendel family

The industrialist and politician Stuart Rendel, 1st Baron Rendel (1834–1913) and his wife, Ellen Hubbard (1838–1912), bought Hatchlands in 1888 as a family home. They constructed a new entrance to the house on the east front, employed their nephew Halsey Ricardo to design the stable block and service buildings, and commissioned the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield to design a music room in the ‘Wrenaissance’, or Edwardian baroque style. The influential garden designer Gertrude Jekyll also created the formal garden that partially survives on the south terrace.

Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel (1887–1959) inherited Hatchlands Park in 1913. Harry was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1937–9. He had a large architectural practice restoring and remodelling country houses, but he was probably best known for his churches, including St Wilfrid's, Brighton (1932) and the Benedictine abbey church at Prinknash (1939). He used his architectural skills to design the two lodges at the east entrance to the park and modelled the wrought iron gates on those along the road at Clandon Park. With the agreement of his heir Philipp Dunne, Harry gave Hatchlands to the National Trust in 1945 but remained living in the house until his death in 1959.

The Saloon at Hatchlands Park displaying the Cobbe Collection of pianos and paintings — The Saloon at Hatchlands Park displaying the Cobbe Collection | © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey

The Cobbe family and the Cobbe Collection Trust

Following a succession of short leases, Alec and Isabel Cobbe came to live at Hatchlands with their family in 1987. Alec is an Irish designer, artist and collector whose collections are displayed in the ground floor rooms. The collection was started in the 18th century, when members of the Cobbe family bought many Italian and Dutch paintings for Newbridge House, near Dublin. Some of the Cobbe family collection was inherited from 19th-century ancestors from England, Ireland, and India. The most notable collection is that of keyboard musical instruments formerly owned or played by famouse composers including Mozart, Chopin, and Purcell. These are played at various concerts throughout the year.