Wimbledon Park, Greater London, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The original Wimbledon House was built in the 16th century and was extensively rebuilt and enlarged in about 1588 for Sir Thomas Cecil; it was then known as Wimbledon Palace. The property was bought in 1639 by King Charles I for his Queen, Henrietta Maria, and remodelled in the 1640s by Inigo Jones and Nicholas Stone. The formal gardens beside the 17th century house were designed by Andre Mollet, John Evelyn advised in the later part of 17th century, and Charles Bridgeman (d 1738) was consulted in 1731-1732. The 17th century building was demolished in the early 18th century and another begun for Sir Theodore Janssen after he purchased the estate in 1717. The estate, which included the unfinished mansion and 365 acres (152 hectares) of parkland, was purchased in about 1723 by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who had the unfinished building demolished. In 1733, on the second attempt, the structure of her new house was completed. The Duchess died in 1744 leaving her considerable estate to her grandson, John Spencer, who died two years later leaving the Marlborough inheritance to his son John, a boy of twelve. When young John Spencer came of age in 1755 he was the biggest landowner in Surrey. His position was recognised by the king who first made him a Viscount and then, in 1765, an Earl.

Spencer took a close interest in his estates and in 1761 planned to make improvements to the gardens at Wimbledon which included ornamenting the canal with a grand stone bridge, an exact replica of the Ponte Rialto in Venice; the bridge does not appear to have been built. From 1765 Lancelot Brown (1716-1783) was commissioned to prepare a design for landscaping the park which lay north of the house (Stroud 1975). The grounds, by this time enlarged to 480 hectares, extended around Brown's 12 hectare lake. Between 1799 and 1802 Earl Spencer had Wimbledon House rebuilt, the architect being Henry Holland (1745-1806).

During the 1870s much of the park was sold for housing development. The mansion became separated from the park by urban development and was eventually demolished in 1949. In the later part of the 19th century the London and South Western railway line between Wimbledon and Wandsworth cut across the east side of the estate and a cricket ground was made to the west of the lake. The northern part of the park, including the lake, was purchased by the then Borough of Wimbledon in 1914 and made into a public open space. At about the same time a private golf course was laid out over a major part of the remainder of the site and in about 1930 the All England Lawn Tennis Club was established on land to the west of Church Road. The mid 20th century division of the site remains the same in 1998.