Wotton House | |
---|---|
Type | Country house |
Location | Guildford Road, Wotton, Surrey |
Coordinates | 51°12′39″N0°23′44″W / 51.21093°N 0.39567°W Coordinates: 51°12′39″N0°23′44″W / 51.21093°N 0.39567°W |
Area | 20 ha (49 acres) |
Built | 17th century |
Owner | InterContinental Hotels Group |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Official name | Wotton House |
Designated | 11 March 1987 |
Reference no. | 1189814 |
Official name | Wotton House |
Designated | 1 June 1984 |
Reference no. | 1000391 |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Waterwork grotto to south west of Wotton House |
Designated | 11 March 1987 |
Reference no. | 1378104 |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Grotto to east of Wotton House |
Designated | 11 March 1987 |
Reference no. | 1294093 |
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. [1]
George Evelyn bought Wotton from Henry Owen, a descendant of Owen Tudor, in 1579. [2] The house was built in the early 17th century by the Evelyn family who extended it in the later 17th century. In the 18th century it was extended eastwards by William Kent. Further extensions and alterations were made in the early 19th century by Francis Edwards. Following a fire in the 1870s the house was restored and enlarged by Henry Woodyer for William John Evelyn in 1877. [3]
Its architectural features include distinctive terracotta decorations on brickwork, octagonal turrets and stacks, winged gryphons on the porch, and plaster wall panels by Kent painted in Chinese style by Belgian Jean Derraux. [3] The old orangery (now the centre's bar [4] ), has a decorative parapet and banded piers. Many of the doors feature small paintings above them. [3]
John Evelyn (1620–1706) and his elder brother George created the first Italian garden in England. Work on it started in 1643, was completed by 1652, [1] and it is the house's most famous feature. [3] The grounds are unusually highly listed as Grade II* and there are also two grottoes close to the house, both listed Grade II. [3] [5] [6] [7]
The River Tillingbourne flows through the estate, which had its own mill at one time. The mill was originally used for the manufacture of gunpowder, a major source of the family's fortune. Later the mill was adapted for use as a wire-works and copper mill. [8]
Wotton House was the family seat of the Evelyn Family. John Evelyn, the diarist, landscape designer and collector, was born in a room still in existence there. He inherited the house and estates on the death of his brother George in 1699. [3]
The descendants who inherited the house in turn included Conservative politician William John Evelyn (1822-1908), who was elected MP for Western Surrey from 1849 until 1857 and became MP for Deptford in 1885 until resigning in 1888.
Between 1947 and 1981 the house was leased to the Home Office and used as the Fire Service College. [9] [10]
Grade II* listed status was given to the garden in 1984, and the house and its two garden grottoes became listed in 1987. [11]
In 2003, having been fully refurbished following a period of relative neglect, Wotton House was re-opened as a hotel, wedding venue, training and conference centre. [12] [3] [11] [4] The property is currently owned and run by InterContinental Hotels Group.
Shalford is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England on the A281 Horsham road immediately south of Guildford. It has a railway station which is between Guildford and Dorking on the Reading to Gatwick Airport line.
Westcott is a semi-rural English village and former civil parish 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of the centre of Dorking on the A25 between the North Downs and Greensand Ridge, making it one of the 'Vale of Holmesdale' villages and is in Surrey in the direction of Guildford. It is served by a local bus service and is 1 mile (1.6 km) from Dorking West railway station on the North Downs Line.
Samuel Sanders Teulon was an English Gothic Revival architect, noted for his use of polychrome brickwork and the complex planning of his buildings.
Betchworth is a village and civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England. The village centre is on the north bank of the River Mole and south of the A25 road, almost 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Dorking and 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Reigate. London is 19.5 miles (31.4 km) north of the village.
Albury is a village and civil parish in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south-east of Guildford town centre. The village is within the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Farley Green, Little London and adjacent Brook form part of the civil parish.
Chilworth is a village in the Guildford borough of Surrey, England. It is located in the Tillingbourne valley, southeast of Guildford.
Deepdene was an estate and country house occupying land to the southeast of Dorking, Surrey, England. The remains of the gardens are Grade II* listed with the adjoining Chart Park on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Cherkley Court, at the extreme southeast of Leatherhead, Surrey, in England, is a late Victorian neo-classical mansion and estate of 370 acres (1.5 km2), once the home of Canadian-born press baron Lord Beaverbrook. The main house is listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England.
Albury Park is a country park and Grade II* listed historic country house in Surrey, England. It covers over 150 acres (0.61 km2); within this area is the old village of Albury, which consists of three or four houses and a church. The River Tillingbourne runs through the grounds. The gardens of Albury Park are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Wotton is a well-wooded parish with one main settlement, a small village mostly south of the A25 between Guildford in the west and Dorking in the east. The nearest village with a small number of shops is Westcott. Wotton lies in a narrow valley, collecting the headwaters of the Tilling Bourne which then has its first combined flow in the Vale of Holmesdale. The parish is long north to south, reaching to the North Downs escarpment in the north to the escarpment of the Greensand Ridge at Leith Hill in the south.
Felbridge is a village and civil parish in the Tandridge district of Surrey with a playing field within its focal area, narrowly in West Sussex. Felbridge village forms a contiguous settlement with East Grinstead and had 829 homes and households at the time of the 2011 census. Domewood is part of Felbridge civil parish, which was created in 1953.
Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists.
Milton Court, at the far west of the town of Dorking, is a 17th-century country house in Surrey. The court was expanded and substantially rebuilt by the Victorian architect William Burges and is a Grade II* listed building including the attached forecourt walls, balustrading, terrace, piers, urns and stone-carved ball finial.
The Pipp Brook is a left-bank tributary of the River Mole, Surrey, England. It rises at two main springs north of Leith Hill on the Greensand Ridge, then descends steeply in a northward direction, before flowing eastwards along the Vale of Holmesdale. It runs to the north of Dorking High Street, before discharging into the Mole at Pixham.
Friday Street is a hamlet on the gentle lower north slope of Leith Hill in Surrey, England. It is in a wooded headwater ravine, just to the south of Wotton and the A25, a single rather than dual carriageway road, running between Guildford to the west and Dorking to the east. It is part of the Surrey Hills AONB.
Goodwyns is a housing estate in Dorking, a market town in Surrey, England. It is on the return slope of one of two hillsides of the town and adjoins North Holmwood, a green-buffered village. The town centre is about 1.7 miles (2.7 km) away.
Chilworth Manor is a historic country house located midway between Chilworth, Surrey and St Martha's Hill to the north. The manor is grade II listed by Historic England.
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 wedding and conference venue, Horsley Towers is a Grade II* listed building.