Whitehall, Cheam

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Whitehall

Surrey

Whitehall, Cheam - geograph.org.uk - 32986.jpg
Whitehall in Cheam
Type: museum
Location
Grid reference: TQ24226376
Location: 51°21’34"N, 0°13’2"W
Village: Cheam
History
museum
Information

Whitehall is a timber-framed historic house museum in the centre of Cheam Village in Surrey. It is thought to have been a wattle and daub yeoman farmer's house originally. It is Grade II* listed.[1]

Features

The tea room

The house contains details from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras. The rooms include the hall, the parlour (thought to have once been the original kitchen), the lower kitchen, the porch room, the Roy Smith art gallery (once a wash room or scullery), the Harriet Killick dressing room and the bedroom. One room has a display about Nonsuch Palace, built nearby by King Henry VIII and pulled down in the 1680s. In the garden there is a mediæval well which served an earlier building on the site.[2]

Whitehall during Cheam Charter Fair in May

History

It is said once to have been called "The Council House," owing to its use by Queen Elizabeth I, for holding an impromptu council meeting for signing papers while on a hunting expedition from Nonsuch Palace.[3]

The oldest private school in the country, The Cheam School, was founded at Whitehall in Cheam in 1645.[4]

Ownership

It is believed that the house was the residence of the merchant, lawyer and philosopher, James Boevey (1622–1696), from c. 1670 to his death.[5]

Between 1741 and 1963 Whitehall was home of the Killick family, and in 1816 birthplace to Captain James Killick who became Captain of the tea clipper Challenger and founded the firm Killick Martin & Company.[6]

The house was bought by the borough in 1963 and following restoration, it was opened to the public as a historic building in 1978, and is run by the local council and the Friends of Whitehall.[7]

The museum closed in 2016 for a £1.6m refurbishment of the building. It reopened in June 2018 with improved facilities.[8]

Outside links

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References

  1. National Heritage List 1357580: Whitehall
  2. David Ross. "Whitehall, Cheam, History & Visiting Information". http://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=1844. Retrieved 25 October 2016. 
  3. "The History of Whitehall". Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141006124943/http://www.friendsofwhitehallcheam.co.uk/Whitehall_History.htm. Retrieved 25 October 2016. 
  4. https://www.cheamschool.com
  5. Crawley-Boevey, A. W. C., The Perverse Widow, Being Passages from the Life of Catharina, Wife of William Boevey, 1898. Biography of James Boevey, pp. 24–38
  6. MacGregor, David R. (1986). The China Bird: The History of Captain Killick, and the Firm He Founded, Killick Martin & Company. Conway Maritime Press Limited. ISBN 0 85177 381 8. 
  7. Friends of Whitehall
  8. Anders Anglesey (7 April 2016). "500-year-old Cheam museum to close for £1.6m renovation (From Sutton Guardian)". http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/news/14410570.500_year_old_museum_to_close_for___1_6m_renovation/?ref=eb. Retrieved 25 October 2016.