The Royal Automobile Country Club (RAC), entrance steps, curved colonnades, and outer pavilions of Woodcote Park (old house)

Details

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TQ 2058,
38/2

EPSOM
OLD BARN ROAD (East Side)
Woodcote Park.
The Royal Automobile Country Club (RAC), entrance steps, curved colonnades, and outer pavilions of Woodcote Park (old house)

(Formerly listed as WILMERHATCH LANE (East Side) Woodcote Park. Entrance steps, curved colonnades, and outer pavilions of Woodcote Park (old house))

10.04.54

II*

Building under way in 1753. Architect: Isaac Ware (design in Avery Library, Columbia University). Burned down in August 1934, the front reproduced in exact replica by Mewes and Davis (architects of the RAC Club, Pall Mall, and the Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly), while the interior was completely reconstructed. The flanking pavilions, the quadrant colonnades, and the entrance perron were unscathed and are therefore original. Some details are apparently re-used, e.g. the iron rococo balcony on the south elevation, and possibly some of the carved ornament.

Main elevation is in red brick with ashlar dressings. Two storeys, basement and attic. Band above basement. Dentilled cornices above first floor, and above attic. Five bays, of which end two break forward slightly, and are crowned by pediments above the first-floor cornice. They have Venetian windows on ground floor, sashes with glazing bars on first floor, and two oculi each in attic. Central three bays have sashes with glazing bars on all floors, and round-arched central doorway is flanked by paired Corinthian pilasters carrying full entablature.

The original remnants are:- double flight or curved stone steps with Palladian balusters. Entrance platform over open semi-circular headed arch. Curved colonnades have round headed arches with balustrades over. The outer pavilions are of one storey and basement with rusticated arcaded ground floors, bands. Four sash windows to inner face first floor, three windows to park face. Hipped slate roofs. Elaborate terminal to attic storey of inner face.

The estate originally belonged to Chertsey Abbey, and was bought by the Mynn family in 1540, remaining in their hands until 1691. In 1648 the Mynn heiress married Richard Evelyn, brother of the diarist (who lived at Wotton House, nr. Dorking), and it was Evelyn's seat until his death in 1670. According to Brayley's "Surrey" it was Evelyn who commissioned Verrio to paint the Chapel ceiling, but it is unlikely that Verrio was in England before 1671, when Evelyn was already dead. The library ceiling was also attributed to Verrio, but the library certainly, and the Chapel. probably were part of the house built circa 1750, after Verrio's death. The paintings could, however, have been re-used. On the death of Mrs Evelyn in 1691, it passed by bequest to the 4th Lord Baltimore, maternally descended from the Mynns. It is not clear whether it was the 6th Lord (who died in 1751) or the 7th who commissioned the rebuilding by Isaac Ware.

Ware equipped the interior with a spectacular series of rooms, which until their partial removal in 1911, were the finest Rococo interiors in England. From 1785 to 1856 it was the property of the de Teissier family, one of whom was created Baron by Louis XVIII in 1819. In 1911 it was bought by the RAC, who sold some of the rooms, thereby saving them from the fire of 1934. The Morning Room is in the Boston Museum, U.S.A.

Listing NGR: TQ2028958768

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

398797

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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