Ockham Park
| Ockham Park | |
| Surrey | |
|---|---|
 Ockham Park House and stables | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ06535651 |
| Location: | 51°17’52"N, 0°28’24"W |
| Village: | Ockham |
| History | |
| Built 1638 | |
| Country house | |
| Information | |
Ockham Park is a seventeenth century country house in Ockham, Surrey.
The house is a square two-storey block in red brick with 7 bays on each side with a hipped tiled roof.[1] The nearby two-storey stable block is grade II* listed and is now converted into flats.[2]
History
The house was built around 1638 for the Weston family as their new manor house. It was altered in 1727-9 to designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor[3][4] for Lord King, the Lord Chancellor, created 1st Baron King in 1725.
In the 1830s it was extended in Italianate style for the seventh Lord King. His son, William was elevated to an earldom as 'the Earl of Lovelace' and lived here with his wife Ada Lovelace, the computing pioneer and Byron's daughter. The house remained in the hands of the family until it was gutted by fire in 1948.
The fire left the orangery, stable block, kitchen wing, and a solitary Italianate tower. The estate of 4,984 acres was in part made public once again insofar as it contributed back to Ockham and Wisley Commons but otherwise was auctioned on 21 October 1958.[5] The surviving buildings, in part, were restored in the 1970s.<refname=nhle/>
Depictions
A steel intaglio engraving "Ockham Park, seat of the Right Hon. the Earl of Lovelace" by T. A. Prior after a painting by T. Allom, was used in print for in E.W. Brayley's A Topographical History of Surrey (1850).
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1029400: Ockham Park House
- ↑ National Heritage List 1188468: Stables to Ockham Park House
- ↑ Whistler, Laurence: 'Ockham Park, Surrey: Newly discovered designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor' in Country Life 29 December 1950: pp 2218-2221
- ↑ Colvin, Howard: 'Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840' 3rd ed. 1995
- ↑ By Clutton with Knight, Frank and Rutley; sale particulars
