Denham Place, Uxbridge, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.  

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

The estate was part owned by the Abbey of Westminster until about 1540, subsequently passing through several hands until bought in the late 17th century by Sir Roger Hill, Member of Parliament for Wendover and High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, who rebuilt an existing house between 1688 and 1701. He surrounded it with elaborate formal gardens to the west, south and east, with over sixty pieces of sculpture and a geometrical canal, with the entrance to the house on the west front, as shown in a painting of about 1705, possibly by John Drapentier (Harris 1979). The main east/west axis of the house was flanked to the south by a further formal walled garden area, also aligned east/west, a stable block to the south-west of the house and a geometrical canal running the whole east/west width of the estate, divided by a water pavilion about 100 metres south of the house. In 1742 the estate was inherited by the Way family, with whom it remained until 1920. The formal gardens were removed by Benjamin Way in about the 1770s, except for the walled garden to the south and one of the ponds within it (although various other items and structures still remain, some relocated), replaced by a lake within a landscape park, following which the entrance front of the house was altered from the west to the east. It is possible that Lancelot Brown (1716-1783) was connected with the layout (Country Life 1925, 604; Stroud 1975, 222). During the mid- to late 19th century development included formal beds west of the house (now [1997] gone). Lord and Lady Vansittart owned the estate from 1930 until it was sold in 1980 and converted to offices.