Hatchlands Park - History

History

The park initially belonged to the Chertsey Abbey with the park being mentioned in the Domesday Book. In 1544, after the dissolution of the monasteries, it was granted by Henry VIII to Sir Anthony Browne and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald (commonly known as 'The Fair Geraldine').

The first visual record of the park is shown on a John Seller map of 1693.

The park was purchased in 1750 by Admiral Boscawen who landscaped the grounds; for the house he employed the architect Stiff Leadbetter. Admiral Boscawen's widow, Fanny sold the estate in 1770 to the Sumner family of the East India Company; both father and son made further alterations to the property. The father, William Brightwell Sumner commissioned Benjamin Armitage to make alterations, and his son, George Holme Sumner asked Humphry Repton (1752–1818) to redesign the park and garden. Towards the end of the century, Joseph Bonomi, ARA, was commissioned to alter several rooms and to impose a frontispiece on the west front.

In 1888, the Sumner family sold the estate to Stuart, later Stuart Rendel, 1st Baron Rendel. He had extensive changes made to the fabric of the house. Rendel was mainly his own architect but he also employed his nephew by marriage, Halsey Ricardo, and commissioned Reginald Blomfield to build the Music Room. Rendel coloured and gilded Adam's ceilings, embellished the staircase with rococo decorations and switched the main entrance of the house to the east. Rendel also commissioned Gertrude Jekyll to design the gardens which contain a parterre.

Hatchlands Park was passed to the National Trust by a grandson of Lord Rendel and is open to the public, but closed in the winter months. There is a café and shop. There is a cobbled courtyard and in the grounds there is a disused ice house.