Polesden Lacey
Polesden. As stated, was the name of the dry lateral valley, which divided the North Downs westwards from Dorking Gap. The property as a place of residence is of considerable antiquity. It appears that in 1336 there was a dwelling house in being. In 1470 it was in the ownership of Thomas Slyfield and was a sub-manor of Great Bookham. In 1562, in some early Deeds, the suffix 'Lacey' first appears.
 | Anthony Rous built one of the first substantial residences on the site in 1631. After diverse ownership Captain later Admiral, Francis Geary, friend of Lord Hawke, Boscawen of Hatchlands and Brodrick of Bookham Grove, purchased the property in 1746 and who was in command of the Channel Fleet when in 1780 a French invasion was threatened. |
It is believed that Geary made the Admiral's Road from Polesden Lacey to the top of Hawks Hill which enabled him to avoid paying the toll at the commencement of the turnpike road, it was during Francis Geary's time that the magnificent terrace walk, then 900 feet in length, was constructed.
Francis Geary's eldest son, Cornet Francis Geary, was killed at Flemington. New Jersey, In December 1776 in an ambush while leading a troup of General Burgoyne's Light Infantry during the American War of Independence. A monument, formerly in the Chancel but now on the South wall of Great Bookham Church, commemorates this incident.
Shortly after the death of Admiral Sir Francis Geary in 1796 the property was let to the Rt Hon Richard Brinsley Sheridan, then a Member of Parliament for Stafford, and dramatist, wit and one of most sparkling orators of the day. Sheridan then aged 44 had married his second wife, Esther Jane, who was a daughter of the Dean of Winchester. They were married on the 27th April 1795 and Sheridan purchased the property with his wife's money in 1804. Sheridan enjoyed being the Squire, entertaining his tenants and preparing schemes for altering the house and improving the grounds. The long terrace, now known as Queen Mary's Walk, was extended to its present length under Mrs Sheridan's direction and the Sheridan's were probably responsible for landscaping the valley to the South. The Universal British Directory 1798 records that 'behind the house are the finest beech woods imaginable'. Sheridan purchased further land enlarging the Estate to 1,000 acres and he so tinkered with the house that when he died on 7th July 1816 it was ripe for redevelopment. He was in severe financial difficulties owing to his extravagant expenditure on the house and gardens, and to the burning down of Drury Lane Theatre in 1809, which he partly owned. The final blow came when he was not re-elected to Parliament in 1812. This completed his ruin and when he died on 7th July 1816 the bailiffs were in the house.
The Sheridan's only son Thomas had three Daughters renowned for their beauty, one married Captain Blackwood who succeeded to the title Lord Dufferin. They lived in Bookham lodge. Another married the Hon Mr Norton and Helen Selina, the Duke of Somerset."
On Sheridan's death the property was purchased by Joseph Bonsor, who pulled down Sheridan's house and in 1824 built another house designed by Thomas Cubitt, the Master Builder who was responsible for the then very advanced town planning of Islington and neighbouring parts of North London. Cubitt himself was so struck with the beauties of the locality that he built himself a house at Denbies on Ranmore. Polesden Lacey passed through several owners, in particular Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart, who married Lady Mary Somerset, daughter of the 6th Duke of Beaufort in 1837 and whose daughter Mary Blanche married Lord Raglan, a widower and son of Field Marshal Lord Raglan of Crimea fame, and who was the son of the 5th Duke of Beaufort on 11th October 1871. In 1896 Sir Clinton E Dawkins purchased the property and demolished nearly the whole of Cubitt's house except for the Ionic colonnade on the South front and added to it a new house designed by Ambrose Poynter. It is basically this house, which is seen today although it is now believed that the whole of the house was not demolished.
The property was acquired in 1906 by Captain the Honourable Ronald Fulke-Greville and his wife, the Edwardian hostess, who was the only daughter of the Right Honourable William McEwan who had made his fortune as a brewer. Greville died in 1908. Mrs Greville re-shaped the interior of the house creating the salon and most of the rooms as seen today and added the bays to the wings of the east front. She was an inveterate collector of stone work and antiques and filled the house with her acquisitions. Mrs Greville, with the connections of her husband, and her Father's money, became a very influential and powerful force in the social life of her time. She constructed a nine-hole golf course in the grounds. Traces of some of the bunkers can still be seen and most of the well-known Politicians of her day and other influential people were invited to join her week-end parties.
Mrs Greville did not appear to have taken a very active part in the life of the village but once every summer she sent the hay carts down to the village to collect the children for a bun tea and she gave them all a silver coin. She wished to give a new peal bells to Great Bookham Church to be placed in a new belfry but it was felt this would affect the mellow ness of the Church and the offer was declined. On the death of Mrs Greville in 1942 by her Will she gave the house and 910 acres, with an endowment, and its collection of furniture to the National Trust. Perhaps because of this generous gift a special dispensation was granted for her burial in the grounds of the house. Mrs Greville made provision for the construction of the Archway, which was built in 1958, at the entrance to Polesden Lacey in memory of her husband. At the funeral service in the Church the King was represented and a telephone message was received that the representative must sit on a red cushion. The reception party waited at the Lych Gate to escort him to his pew. There was a roar of motor cycle outriders and an imposing car was seen approaching-word was sent into the Church for the National Anthem to be played-a senior Canadian General arrived! The National Anthem was stopped and the ceremonial party again took up their stations. The Royal Envoy arrived in a modest car!
In September 1960 a fire badly damaged the roof and upper parts of the house at Polesden and water affected the decorations and contents of the ground floor rooms. The House was re-opened on the 7th June 1962 by Lord Beaverbrook, supported by Lord Crawford and Lord Bridges, and a strawberry tea! The Estate again became, as described by Sheriden, the 'nicest place in England within a prudent distance from London'.
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King George VI, then Duke of York, and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, spent part of their honeymoon at Polesden Lacey in 1923. In December 1928 the Duchess of York again visited Great Bookham when she opened St Nicolas Church House in the Lower Road since redeveloped.
Beyond the road to Polesden Lacey is the only remaining farm along the Dorking Road, Phoenice Farm. The name derives from the days when the Romans grew grapes as an annual crop in Southern England, almost certainly introduced. An ideal Southern slop for a vineyard lies between the farmhouse and the bottom of Bagden Hill. Phoenice is probably a corruption of 'Voenice', a vine growing area.
At the foot of Bagden Hill is 'Old Dene' built in 1899 and occupied with 18 acres of land (until recently) by the Hylton-Foster family since 1908, when there was only a well water supply; and to the west of the entrance drive, at the bottom of the Hill, a dew pond for watering the cattle. A main water supply came three years later. Mr Cuthel of Chapel Lane built the house. At that time there was a gate where Chapel Lane joins the road to Rammore, enclosing Rammore Common. Mrs Hylton-Foster's sister Lady Dunphie lived at Flushings House. One of Mrs Hylton-Foster's closest friends was Lady Victoria Downe of Bookham Grove, who was the daughter of Earl Grey, and whose husband was killed when big game shooting. Mrs Hylton-Foster died in July 1974.
Along Chapel Lane, near where it joins the road to Rammore, there is a large chalk quarry in the escarpment of the hill. In the quarry face there are adits leading to large caves and galleries. When I last entered the caves in 1944 it was obvious that the chalk had been used for building. There were rectangular blocks of chalk stacked for carrying away and similar size to those found in the cellars of the older cottages. The cellar to No 30 High Street has such chalk blocks for the construction of the lower part of the cellar walls.
On the top of Rammore at the end stood a fort, one of a series of fortified bunkers built between 1889 and 1896 along the North Downs, part of a defensive scheme, which was however abandoned in 1905. This fort consisted of ramparts containing ammunition stores, partially underground; set round three sides of a Courtyard. Access was had to the stores by concrete stairways. There was an excellent field of fire from the ramparts down the escarpment of the Downs. The forth side of the Courtyard was occupied by living quarters with a protective wall in case of accidental explosion, and the entrance which was closed by substantial and heavy gates. The fort was demolished in 1971.
At the North end is Slyfield House, one of the best examples of Jacobean Domestic architecture in Surrey, dating from the 16th or early 17th Century. It is uncertain whether it is the existing house, or it's predecessor, which was visited by Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) when she was staying at Stoke d'Abernon Manor House on one of her summer progresses on her way from her Palace at Sheen to Guildford. The existing buildings are only part of a very considerable mansion which was built, as was customary at that time, in the shape of an 'E' in honour of the Queen, part being demolished in the early 19th Century.
The house is built in red brick, with moulded brick columns. Within the house are several plaster ceilings, which were constructed between 1614 and 1700 during her Shiers' ownership.
 | The present dining room is in Queen Anne Style and probably the work of Dr Shortrudge. Some of the original lead lights survive but Georgian sash windows have replaced most. |
 | To the North of the house are out-buildings once used as a farm, but now converted into a dwelling, which once formed part of the main structure of the house. |
It is clamed that on the panelling of the door to one of the rooms on the first floor the names of some of Cromwell's soldiers, who were billeted there, are inscribed.
Slyfield was the seat of a family of the same name who held the Manor of Slyfield in very early times, probably from the 12th Century until 1614, by which time the Slyfield's had climbed from being tenant farmers to being Lord of the Manor of Great Bookham. The most notable member of the family was Edmund Slyfield (1520-1590) J P. who was Sheriff of Surrey in 1582. His Grandson, also Edmund, sold the house to Henry Breton in March 1614 who in November of the same year sold it to George Shiers.
The Shiers were a local family and the last member of the family to reside at Slyfield was Mrs Elizabeth Shiers, who was bequeathed the property by her son George who died in 1685 aged 24, without issue. Elizabeth Shiers, a widow, bequeathed the house to Dr Hugh Shortrudge who was the Rector of Fetcham and the Vicar of Great Bookham. It has been suggested that Mrs Shiers and Dr Shortrudge married. Mrs Shiers died in 1700. She had intended by her will that the property should be placed in trust for the benefit of Exeter College, Oxford, where her son had been educated, and for the benefit of the incumbents of Effingham, Great Bookham, Leatherhead and Shalford, provided a sermon was preached at the respective Parish Churches on the 30th January, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, and on Good Friday in each year. The Will did not legally fulfil Mrs Shiers' intentions. Dr Shortrudge lived in Slyfield from 1700 until his death in 1720.
In 1715 Dr Shortrudge formed a Trust to carry out the wishes of Mrs Shiers' Will and empowered the Trustees to pull down Slyfield House. Fortunately this provision was not carried out for about 100 years and then only part was demolished, and the remainder converted into a farmhouse. The Estate remained in the hands of the Shortrudge Trustees until the 1870's.
A portrait of Dr Shortrudge hangs in the Dinning Hall of Exeter College. He matriculated in Exeter College in 1668, obtained his BA in 1672, his MA from Trinity, Cambridge in 1675, his Bachelor of Divinity in 1679 and he became a Doctor of Divinity in 1701. He was Rector of Fetcham from 1704 to 1710 and he died at Slyfield House on 20th March 1720, leaving a Will dated 28th January 1708. There are tablets recording the Charities he created in Great Bookham Church. It has been stated that Dr Shortrudge was a staunch supporter of Church and King and that the Anniversary Sermons on the 30th January and Good Friday in each year were to praise Charles I and to bring the horror of the execution in 1649 before the people. There is no evidence that the sermons were to be pro-Royalist and may well have been for other reasons. Daphne du Maurier lived at Slyfield during her childhood in the years 1912 and 1913.
Mention must be made of the Author George Meredith, who was sometimes seen striding over the Fetcham Downs. In 1856 he was living at Weybridge and in 1858 moved to Oxshott. Finally in 1868 he settled at Flint Cottage, Boxhill, dying there on 18th May 1909 aged 81. In 1885 he wrote 'Diana of the Crossways', a grim sometimes incomprehensible novel which brought him a widening public. 'Crossways Farm', a sombre stone built house still used as a farm, which seems outwardly as cheerless as the book, is at the crossroads forming the meeting of the Westcott-Gomshall road to Ranmore.