Painshill, Surrey, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

NOTE
This entry is a summary. Because of the complexity of this site, the standard Register entry format would convey neither an adequate description nor a satisfactory account of the development of the landscape. The user is advised to consult the references given below for more detailed accounts. Many listed buildings exist within the site, not all of which have been here referred to. Descriptions of these are to be found in the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest produced by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

The site was part of Henry VIII's Honour of Hampton Court (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register) which was disparked in 1548 when Crown leases were granted to tenants and the Painshill area was divided into three farms. In 1738 Charles Hamilton acquired the farms from William Bellamy, a successful barrister. The previous encumbent was the Marquis du Quesne, who had lost a fortune in the collapse of the South Sea Bubble and it was probably he who built the house near Portsmouth Road which was occupied by Hamilton.

Hamilton was born in Dublin in 1704, the ninth son and youngest of 14 children of James, the 6th Earl of Abercorn. After studying at Oxford, where he became a lifelong friend of Henry Fox, Hamilton visited Europe on at least two occasions for the Grand Tour. In 1738 he began to acquire land in Cobham, where he took over the Crown leases of the three farms as well as purchasing additional land giving a total of around 80 hectares. Hamilton proceeded to create what Horace Walpole called 'a fine place out of a most cursed hill' (Walton and Weybridge Local Hist Soc 1986).

The garden contained a series of 'living pictures' (WWLHS 1986), designed to provoke moods and sensations, with sudden changes of scenery interspersed with architectural features and variations in colour by the careful mixing and placing of foliage. Hamilton was always short of money, which led to a series of business ventures which included a vineyard and a brick and tile works at Painshill. His knowledge of plants was respected by his contemporaries and he supplied seeds to nurseries. By 1773 he was forced to sell Painshill as he was being pressed by Henry Fox and Henry Hoare (of Hoares Bank) for the repayment of loans and he retired to Bath where he died in 1786.

The site was acquired by Benjamin Bond Hopkins, who built a new mansion completed in 1778. Even when the house was complete, Hopkins spent little time at Painshill as in 1777 he had acquired Wimbledon House, where he laid out a park with a lake, grotto, and cascade. He did however continue Hamilton's work of planting new species and also developed new features in the landscape.

After Hopkins' death, Painshill had a number of owners, including William Cooper, High Sheriff of Surrey, who employed Decimus Burton to make alterations to Painshill House. He employed the firm of Bramah to build a suspension bridge over Portsmouth Road and to replace with a more modern version Hamilton's water wheel which raised water from the River Mole to the lake at Painshill.

The owners until the Second World War were the Combes, responsible for rockeries on the site of Hamilton's vineyard and the removal of the columns from the Temple of Bacchus to grace the portico of Painshill Park House. The site was requisitioned for the Canadian Army during the war, and afterwards purchased by the Baroness de Veauce, who converted the House and outbuildings into private dwellings which were sold off. The park was also split into lots and sold for various uses, including forestry and agriculture.

In 1975 a group of Cobham residents formed the Friends of Painshill, and together with the Garden History Society and the Georgian Group brought pressure to bear on the local authority (Elmbridge Borough Council) to purchase the site. By 1980, some 62 hectares of the pleasure grounds had been acquired, and the Painshill Park Trust set up with the object of restoring the 18th-century landscape to its former glory. The Trust has researched and restored the park and its buildings to the highest standards and now (2003) has the Hermitage, the Temple of Bacchus, the Five-arch Bridge, the Palladian south bank bridge, and the later Bath House and Boat House still to be rebuilt. The area of the park owned by the Trust is open to the public while the house and remaining parkland are in divided private ownership.