Sudbrook Park

Of Dukes, Trees and Golf – A History of a lost Richmond landscape – Sudbrook Park

Research Focus. Sandra Pullen of our Research Group has compiled this article based on her work for our inventory of London’s Parks, which is available to view from our webpages.

Sudbrook Park, currently the home of the Richmond upon Thames Golf Club, has an interesting if chequered history. It can be traced back to the early 18th century when John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, created the estate in the 1720s. At its peak, it totalled a hundred and thirty acres of freehold and copyhold land, with a fine Mansion designed by the Scottish born James Gibbs at its centre. Gibbs spanned the transition between English baroque and Georgian architecture. His work includes St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square and Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera. The Sudbrook estate appears on John Rocque’s 1746 map of London, where it records the owner as Argyll’s widow.

The northeast of the park was dominated by a mount ornamented with radial, tree-lined avenues. To the rear of the property, close to the house, was a large area of wilderness.

It has been suggested the parkland design may have been the work of Charles Bridgeman, who helped pioneer the naturalistic landscape style. Bridgeman’s innovations in English landscape architecture have been somewhat eclipsed by the work of his more famous successors, William Kent and Lancelot “Capability” Brown. The estate’s original layout is typical of those attributed to Bridgeman, but sadly the family papers, which may have provided the evidence, were destroyed during WW2.

On the death of the Duke in 1743, his widow retained a lifetime’s interest; then ownership passed to his eldest daughter, Lady Caroline Campbell. Under her ownership, minor land additions were made to the north of the estate; she also purchased the freehold of the land, previously leased by the Crown, to the west, once part of Richmond Park.. A survey dated 1794 prepared for Henry, the third Duke of Buccleuch, Caroline’s son from her first marriage and heir, currently in the Buccleuch family papers in Edinburgh, shows some significant felling of trees on the west of the estate, but otherwise the landscape was unaltered from that shown on the Rocque map.

Sudbrook was never a significant element of the Buccleuch’s property portfolio. In 1819, Sudbrook Park went to public auction, with only three minor lots finding buyers. There were two other unsuccessful sales. In 1824, records show the estate was briefly rented out to a Mr T Raikes before the tenancy was transferred to Robert Wilmot Horton (MP), who then purchased the whole estate from the Buccleuch family in 1825. Horton made extensive improvements to the house, service areas and grounds, significantly enlarging and remodelling the pleasure grounds in the fashionable gardenesque style. He also created a fine kitchen garden in the southwest area of the parkland, including 0.2 acres taken from the rear garden of Ormeley Lodge.

In 1831, Horton was appointed Governor of Ceylon. Before leaving, he auctioned the whole estate. Horton’s improvements to the Mansion and its immediate grounds were described in glowing terms, as was the land’s building potential, stressing its vicinity to Richmond Hill. However, the estate remained unsold.

The sale particulars also mentioned that only the Mansion and grounds, in total 27 acres and 30 poles, were ‘in hand’ and that the remainder of the estate was let to several tenants, the principal being Mr James Tubby, a cow-keeper from Ham Common who remained a tenant until 1849 when his name disappeared from the records.

In February 1837 when Horton returned to the UK, a surveyor from the Ministry of Works visited Sudbrook on behalf of the Crown. His report survives in the National Archives; it comments on the neglected condition of both house and grounds but does recommend purchase for £22,483, citing the need to protect the view, the opportunity of enlarging Richmond Park, and as a commercial building project. The surveyor suggested building fourteen to twenty detached cottage villas on the high road. The Treasury rejected his recommendations, citing insufficient commercial justification for the purchase. Mortgage papers and records of loans from this time held in the Horton family papers in the Derbyshire County Record Office suggest money problems.

In 1841, following Horton’s death, negotiations reopened with the Ministry of Works. A new survey and accompanying report dated 26th July 1841 in the National Archives mentions that in the intervening period, the Hortons had engaged in a project `to build villas upon a very extended scale tantamount to a little new town’. One hundred and twenty-three houses were planned; there had been a widespread felling of trees and preliminary work was already underway. The report mentions the existence of a brickyard situated on the rising land adjacent to Richmond Park to supply the bricks needed for the project. At the time of the visit, 12,000 bricks were found burning and 70,000 drying. One and a half million bricks were manufactured between 1840 and 1841. The surveyor concluded there was greater profitability in buying the estate than in 1837, suggesting a building project for twenty-three houses and that the thirty-two acres initially taken from Richmond Park should be reabsorbed back into the park. This time, the Treasury gave its approval.

For the next two years, the estate remained unoccupied while modifications were made to the house and garden to improve its rental potential. Dr Weiss became the Crown’s first tenant; with Dr Ellis, he planned to open the house as a hydropathic establishment. Dr Weiss’s involvement was short-lived, and in December 1845, Dr Ellis became the principal tenant. A year later, he extended the lease for a further twenty years. A detailed account of the treatments offered and life at Sudbrook Park can be found in England’s A Companion to the Watering and Bathing Places. Containing Their Amusements, Curiosities, Antiquities, Seats in Their Vicinities, Chief Inns, and Distances from London, downloadable from Google Books. The establishment had its fair share of controversies, most noticeably in 1846 when Dr Ellis stood trial for manslaughter (later acquitted) by medical neglect of Richard Dresser, one of his Sudbrook patients. Dr Ellis survived the scandal, as did the clinic, although from 1860 under the superintendentship of Dr Lane, only closing in 1879.

Trees were to be the defining and enduring feature of Sudbrook Park and plans of the estate dating from the 1850s show the wilderness remained densely planted with trees, perhaps remnants from the original planting. Otherwise there is nothing to distinguish the gardens. It may well be that it was at this time the kitchen garden was moved into the wilderness area and the carriageway extended to the rear of the property to form the main entrance.

Meanwhile, in 1853 the Ministry of Works began the protracted process of purchasing the freehold of the remaining copyhold land, a process not completed till 1863.

The next principal tenant was the Marquis of Bute, although the house was often sub-let. Books on local history say in 1886 the house became a private hotel, but any relevant documents covering this period are missing from the National Archives so cannot be verified at this time.

On 5th April 1898, the lease held by the Marquis of Bute expired. Eventually, a new twenty-one-year lease for one hundred and seven acres was offered to the Richmond Golf Club. Approximately two and three-quarters acres were held back and offered on a separate lease to a long-standing tenant of the Marquis of Bute. The new lease also gave the Crown building rights over eight acres in the southwest corner of the park, rights they exercised in 1931 when planning permission was granted to develop several detached family villas, now known as Sudbrook Gardens.

Nothing now remains of the original landscape, although the clubhouse is a remarkably well-preserved example of Gibb’s work, well worthy of its Grade One listed status. Richmond Golf Course bought the freehold of the land and Mansion in May 2016 to guarantee its long-term future as a golf course.