Foxwarren Park | |
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![]() The newly-constructed house was pictured in the Illustrated London News in 1860 | |
Type | House |
Location | Wisley, Borough of Guildford, Surrey |
Coordinates | 51°19′43″N0°27′08″W / 51.3286°N 0.4521°W |
Built | 1860 |
Architect | Frederick Barnes |
Architectural style(s) | Gothic Revival |
Owner | Privately owned |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Official name | Foxwarren Park |
Designated | 22 September 1981 |
Reference no. | 1189110 |
Foxwarren Park, at Wisley in Surrey, is a Victorian country house and estate. On sandstone Ockham and Wisley Commons, it was designed in 1860 by the railway architect Frederick Barnes for brewing magnate and MP, Charles Buxton. It is a Grade II* listed building.
From 1919 to 1955, it was owned by Alfred Ezra who was President of the Avicultural Society — he assembled a collection of rare birds and animals on the estate — in 1939 it housed the last known pink-headed ducks in the world. It was then owned by Hannah Weinstein and chosen for films and television series including The Adventures of Robin Hood .
Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist and politician, was also an amateur architect. [1] Having rented a range of properties around the growing village of Weybridge in the 1850s, he purchased the site for Foxwarren Park in 1855. [1] He was heavily involved in the design of the new house, working with Frederick Barnes, known more for his designs for railway stations, particularly in Norfolk. The style is described as "harsh Victorian Gothic". [2]
The house has been suggested as the inspiration for E. H. Shepard's illustrations of Toad Hall in Kenneth Grahame's book, The Wind in the Willows . [3] [4] The claim has also been made for Hardwick House [5] and Mapledurham House [6] in Oxfordshire, and Fawley Court in Buckinghamshire. [7] [8] [9]
The house was acquired by Alfred Ezra in 1919, who owned it until his death in 1955. He was an enthusiastic breeder of birds and created a large private collection of rare birds and animals on the estate. From in 1939 the journal Forest and Outdoors praised it as "probably the finest (private zoo) in the world"; in which state it had been since 1920 and remained so until the following year. [10] [11] It hosted the known last pair of pink-headed ducks. [12]
During World War II, the estate hosted research facilities of engineering firm Vickers for Operation Chastise: development of Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb. [13]
In the late 1950s, the house and estate was owned by Hannah Weinstein's Sapphire Films which built a castle in the deer park and used it as the location for the successful TV series, The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene. [14] a not dissimilar show, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot , also used it as a location. Weinstein commissioned writers who had been blacklisted in the US as communists and this exile community included Christina Stead, who had a cottage in the grounds. [15]
In 1978, the house was used as the main location for the horror movie, The Comeback . [16]
The house is built of red brick, in a polychromatic design, with terracotta dressings and blue diapering. [2] The house is Grade II* listed. [2] The architectural critic Ian Nairn (d.1983) described the Model Farm attached to Foxwarren Park as "a true Struwelpeter mid-Victorian nightmare". [17] It has a separate Grade II* listing. [18]
The house's elaborate decorations and antiques may be those being compared to those of the subject house of Henry James' novel, The Spoils of Poynton : [19]
...out of a Philistine, a tasteless, a hideous house; the kind of house the very walls and furniture of which constitute a kind of anguish for such a woman as I suppose the mother to be. That kind of anguish occurred to me, precisely, as a subject, during the two days I spent at Fox Warren...
Surrey is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the west. The largest settlement is Woking.
Wisley is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England between Cobham and Woking, in the Borough of Guildford. It is the home of the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley Garden. The River Wey runs through the village and Ockham and Wisley Commons form a large proportion of the parish on a high acid heathland, which is a rare soil type providing for its own types of habitat. It has a standard weather monitoring station, which has recorded some national record high temperatures.
Cobham is a large village in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, centred 17 miles (27 km) south-west of London and 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Guildford on the River Mole. It has a commercial/services High Street, a significant number of primary and private schools and the Painshill landscape park.
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a British television series comprising 143 half-hour, black and white episodes broadcast weekly between 1955 and 1959 on ITV. It starred Richard Greene as the outlaw Robin Hood, and Alan Wheatley as his nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The show followed the legendary character Robin Hood and his band of merry men in Sherwood Forest and the surrounding vicinity. While some episodes dramatised the traditional Robin Hood tales, most were original dramas created by the show's writers and producers.
Samuel Sanders Teulon was an English Gothic Revival architect, noted for his use of polychrome brickwork and the complex planning of his buildings.
Charles Buxton was an English brewer, philanthropist, writer and member of Parliament.
Byfleet is a village in Surrey, England. It is located in the far east of the borough of Woking, around 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of West Byfleet, from which it is separated by the M25 motorway and the Wey Navigation.
Mapledurham House is an Elizabethan stately home located in the civil parish of Mapledurham in the English county of Oxfordshire. It is a Grade I listed building, first listed on 24 October 1951.
Gatton Park is a country estate set in parkland landscaped by Capability Brown and gardens by Henry Ernest Milner and Edward White at Gatton, near Reigate in Surrey, England.
Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists.
Hardwick House is a Tudor house on the banks of the River Thames on a slight rise at Whitchurch-on-Thames in the English county of Oxfordshire. It is reputed to have been the inspiration for E. H. Shepard's illustrations of Toad Hall in the book The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, although this is also claimed by Mapledurham House, Fowey Hall Hotel, Foxwarren Park and Fawley Court.
Wotton House is a hotel, wedding venue, conference centre and former country house in Wotton near Dorking, Surrey, England. Originally the centre of the Wotton Estate and the seat of the Evelyn family, it was the birthplace in 1620 of diarist and landscape gardener John Evelyn, who built the first Italian garden in England there.
The Church of St John the Baptist, Outwood, is the parish church of Outwood, Surrey, England.
Silvermere is an estate in Surrey, England named after its mere – a shallow lake of about ten acres which has a silvery appearance when seen from the surrounding slopes. It was created in the 19th century for the rich architect, William Atkinson, and subsequently became the home of the Seth Smith family, who had also become wealthy from property development. An ancient British burial mound was found on the land and the Silvermere Urn was found within. During World War II, the mere was used for experiments to develop and test the bouncing bomb. The estate is now a golf course and the final green is on an island in the mere.
Alfred "Chips" Ezra, OBE (1872–1955) was a British breeder and keeper of birds. He built up a collection of rare birds at Foxwarren Park in southern England that was considered the finest of its kind.
Toad Hall is the fictional home of Mr. Toad, a character in the 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
Shabden Park is a 103-hectare (250-acre) nature reserve in Chipstead in Surrey. It is owned by Surrey County Council and managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust and is part of the Chipstead Downs Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Horsley Towers, East Horsley, Surrey, England is a country house dating from the 19th century. The house was designed by Charles Barry for the banker William Currie. The East Horsley estate was later sold to William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace who undertook two major expansions of the house to his own designs. Lovelace lived at the Towers with his wife, Ada, daughter of Lord Byron, a pioneering mathematician, friend of Charles Babbage and described as among the first computer programmers. In 1919, the Towers was purchased by Thomas Sopwith, the aviator and businessman, who named his plane, the Hawker Horsley, after his home. Now a hotel, wedding and conference venue set in parkland with a total area of about 50 acres, Horsley Towers is a Grade II* listed building.