Garden Walls With Gateway to Esher Place Gardens, at Number 7 (Garden Reach Cottage)

Details

Boundary walls and gateway. Mid C18 probably associated with work by William Kent (c1665-1748) at Esher Place for Henry Pelham in the 1730s.

MATERIALS: There are two distinct builds of wall. The roadside section and gatepiers and part of the east-west section of wall are of plum-brown brick mostly in English garden wall bond. The taller boundary wall and pedimented gateway forming the southwest boundary are in soft red brick in Flemish bond.

DESCRIPTION: The walls bound a roughly triangular area which was formerly part of the kitchen gardens to Esher Place and contains the former orangery and gardener's cottage (7 More Lane). The roadside section is buttressed and broken by a pair of gatepiers which have been repaired and have later C18 Coadestone pineapple finials. The southern corner of the wall is rebuilt. The return forming the northern boundary of no. 7 is partly of similar construction with possibly a blocked entrance, but extends westward towards the cottage in soft, red Flemish bond brickwork. The taller wall forms the boundary between 7 More Lane and the property to the south in More Lane and 2 Wayneflete Tower Avenue, and incorporates a pedimented round-arched gateway also in Flemish bond red brick. Piers have plain red brick impost bands, the pediment has a brick dentilled cornice. Inserted in the wall is a doorway under a cambered red brick arch with a vertically boarded door, and a narrow opening. The wall is buttressed at the angles. The continuation of wall to the north of the gateway, under a shaped parapet, has been partly rebuilt.

HISTORY: Esher Place was one of the most significant Rococo landscapes in the country, with a house, landscape and estate buildings designed by William Kent -- painter, architect and garden designer -- for Henry Pelham in the 1730s, incorporating the house built for Bishop Wayneflete of Winchester in the late C15. The centre of the house, now known as Wayneflete's Tower, the grotto, an urn and the lodges survive. The walls and gateway at 7 More Lane enclosed C18 kitchen gardens and have historic interest for their association with Esher Place and the rich context of early C18 landscapes in Esher. To the north of 7 More Lane is the remains of the former rectangular kitchen garden.

Esher Place is depicted in an engraving dated 1759, but kitchen gardens, as expected, are not included in the view. We do not know precisely when the walled garden, gardener's cottage and orangery were built, although Kent is known to have built a boundary wall to the estate. Until the 1950s the walled gardens were run as commercial gardens by the former estate gardener who lived in the gardener's cottage.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The C18 garden walls and gateway at 7 More Lane, Esher, are designated for the following principal reasons: * The gateway and walls form part of an incomplete walled kitchen garden and boundary wall associated with Esher Place * These structures have an historic link with Esher Place which was set in a Rococo landscape in the 1730s by William Kent for Henry Pelham.

Listing NGR: TQ1372765009

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

286816

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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