Lower Gatton Park, Reigate, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Gatton Park, with its surrounding pleasure grounds, kitchen garden, and orchard was purchased in 1751 by Sir James Colebrooke from William Newland. Sir George Colebrooke, banker and later chairman of the East India Company, inherited Gatton Park from his brother in 1761, owning the estate until 1774. He called in Lancelot Brown (1716-83) to advise on the grounds; Brown's involvement with the estate extended primarily from 1762 to 1768, but also included later visits. Brown's account book records payments totalling £3055 excluding later journeys, a sum representing a substantial amount of work.

The 1786 Christie's sale catalogue for the Gatton Estate, which included Upper Gatton to the north as well as Lower Gatton, published on the death of Lord Newhaven who owned the estate from 1774, cites the improvements to the house, pleasure grounds, park, lakes, and kitchen gardens at Lower Gatton Park as having cost 'upwards of £30,000'. The estate was purchased by a Mr Petrie who, in 1798, sold it on to Sir Mark Wood (Victoria County History 1911). During his thirty-two years of ownership Sir Mark was responsible for much rebuilding and the estate was enlarged.

In 1830 the trustees of the fifth Lord Monson bought the estate, the property remaining in this family until 1888. Following the death of the seventh Lord Monson, the estate was purchased by Sir Jeremiah Colman, of the Colman's mustard firm. In 1893 Colman, a keen orchid grower, employed H E Milner, one of the sixty original recipients of the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour, to remodel the gardens and improve the parkland (Gardeners' Chronicle 1897).

In 1948 a major part of the site was bought by the Foundation of the Royal Alexandra and Albert School and it continues (1998) to be used as a boarding and day school. In 1952 the Colman family gave 40.5 hectares of parkland to the west of the site to the National Trust.