Honeywood Oaks Excavation 2009

OAKS PARK EXCAVATION - AN OVERVIEW
a Take Part, Take Pride Event in association with Carshalton & District History & Archaeology Society
Wednesday 8th to Monday 13th July 2009
John Phillips

The Oaks was one of the great sporting houses of 18^th century England and home to one of Georgian England’s greatest social events. It was here that the 12^th Earl of Derby and his friends devised the Oaks and the Derby – the famous horse races run each year at Epsom.

The generally accepted story of The Oaks is that the core of Derby’s house dated from mid-18^th century and it has been suggested that it was designed by Sir Robert Taylor for a banker called Sir Thomas Gosling. It was enlarged by Colonel, later General, John Burgoyne (Gentleman Johnny) in the 1750s or 1760s. The Adam brothers started a major rebuild for the 12^th Earl of Derby but this was abandoned – probably about 1778/9 when his first wife left him. The centre of the house was rebuilt in the mid-19^th century.

The house, gardens and park were bought by Carshalton Urban District Council in 1933. They retained a large part of the park as a public open space but they demolished the house between 1956 and 1960 leaving only the bake house, stables and some other outbuildings.

The Council’s Carshalton and Clockhouse Area Committee decided to mark the outline of the house on the grass and erect interpretation boards to make the site more interesting for visitors to the park.

The Carshalton and District History and Archaeology Society, supported by the Friends of Oaks Park undertook a limited excavation to locate the key walls during Sutton Council’s ‘Take Part, Take Pride’ week. They were supported by the Friends of Honeywood Museum and the Council's Museum and Heritage Service and Parks Service.

We opened seven trenches, most along the north and east sides of the house, to define its position and get more information about its history. We discovered that the western side of the house had been much more thoroughly demolished than the centre. This was probably because the centre side was demolished in the mid-1950s when building materials were in short supply following the Second World War. The east end was left standing until 1959-60. The bake house at the east end is still standing.

The thorough demolition meant that we were unable to locate any of the mid-18^th century house but we did uncover the foundations of the west wing added for John Burgoyne and old parts of a turret that Robert Adam designed for the 12^th earl of Derby. Both areas were of red brick as we expected. The finds suggested that the roof had been covered with black iron glazed pan tiles rather than the red ones we expected to find. A black roof must have looked rather odd on a bright red building.

Another unexpected result was that main building was at slight angle to the surviving bake house which was added at the end of the 19^th century. We have no idea why this was so.

We got the information we needed to mark the outline of the house on the park which has now been done. Some boards explaining the site will be erected in 2010 and a full report on the excavation will appear in the Spring.


Sunday 5th July Archaeological experts from Friends of Honeywood Museum, Friends of Oaks Park, Honeywood Museum, Sutton Heritage Service and Carshalton & District Archaeological Society with fence posts and hammers! The fences go up to protect the area within which the dig will take place

Wednesday 8th July	Thursday 9th July		Friday 10th July

DAY 1 REPORT	DAY 2 REPORT		DAY 3 REPORT

Saturday 11th July	Sunday 12th July		Monday 13th July

DAY 4 REPORT	DAY 5 REPORT		DAY 6 REPORT

What's trendy or staid in 2009?		Lining out the site	The 19th Earl of Derby's visit

THE FASHION PARADE		THE LINE-OUT	THE EARL VISITS

Oaks Park was created from land originally owned by the Lamberts, an old established family of farmers and substantial landowners in the Banstead area who could trace their ancestry back many generations.

The last Lambert known to have had a dwelling in the vicinity of The Oaks was Roger Lambert who, in 1584, ‘removed to Shortes Place’ an old Tudor-panelled house that once stood on the village green at Woodmansterne. There is no record or evidence of subsequent occupation at Lamberts Oaks, as the estate was named, until the mid 18^th century although the Lamberts continued to own the land.

Banstead Downs, which extended from Epsom in the west to the outskirts of Croydon to the east, had a history of sporting activities including hunting and racing. There was a revival in its popularity in the early 18^th century when the downs became a fashionable spot for city businessmen and the gentry. This popularity extended beyond recreation with the construction of fine houses meeting a desire for a country seat or second residence.

Hunting and racing attracted a ‘society of gentlemen’ known as the Hunters’ Club to approach the Lamberts asking to lease Lambert’s Oaks and seeking permission to build there. The result was a modest but stylish four storey hunting box; a villa constructed by Robert Taylor in the early 1750s. Taylor was later knighted and became the country’s most successful architect prior to the rise of James and Robert Adam.

The estate, soon renamed simply The Oaks was initially much smaller than today and was bordered by a ha-ha sunken ditch, the remains of which can be seen a little lower north down the lawn. To the west, the valley of Lambert’s Oaks, as described by a Victorian racing historian, overlooked the four and a half mile racecourse that ran from Carshalton to Tattenham Corner prior to the construction of the circular Epsom race track we know today.

The first occupier of the villa we are told was a Mr Simmons who was followed by a knight from the Gosling banking dynasty. By the end of 1756 a new tenant purchased the lease; an ambitious young army officer - Captain, eventually Lieutenant General, John Burgoyne. In 1765 Burgoyne commissioned Robert Taylor to build a dining/ballroom single storey wing to the east and in all probability the western kitchen wing was also completed at this time.

‘Gentleman Johnny’ as he was affectionately described by his men was a talented officer, inveterate gambler, playboy, author and M.P. He had a reputation for being pompous and excruciatingly wordy in correspondence but of a kindly nature. History treated him somewhat unfairly after he surrendered his army to the rebel Americans at Saratoga.

By the early 1770s The Oaks had passed to the aging 11^th Earl of Derby whose daughter Lady Charlotte had eloped with Burgoyne some years earlier and caused a rift that eventually was healed with good grace. The man who was to succeed to the earldom a few years later, Edward Smith Stanley fell in love with Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. The announcement of the intended marriage gave rise to the largest and most elaborate social gathering ever seen in England - the great Fête Champêtre, organized and ‘conducted’ by Burgoyne. Society’s elite vied for invitations and on June 9^th 1774 Parliament closed down to allow their lordships to attend the celebrations. A great ballroom and dining room were housed in an ornate and lavish temporary pavilion constructed by Robert Adam. A temple portico was fixed to the side of The Oaks east wing and the finest players, musicians and singers performed in the garden for the guests. Burgoyne wrote a classical masque which was adapted by David Garrick for the stage at Drury Lane the following November. In March 1775 Burgoyne departed for America and his appointment with his unfortunate niche in military history on the 7^th October 1777.

The Fête Champêtre had captured the nation’s imagination but unlike Burgoyne’s play ‘The Maid of The Oaks’ the now 12^th Earl of Derby’s marriage to Elizabeth Hamilton did not have a happy ending. She ran off with a notorious rake, the cricketing Duke of Dorset. Derby refused a divorce, the duke lost interest and Elizabeth was shunned by society until her premature death in 1797.

Derby had commissioned Robert Adam to draw up proposals to enlarge the house further. Some of Adam’s proposed schemes were almost Disney like in their castle extravagance but a more modest project went ahead with some major expansion work completed before Derby, filled with anger at his duchess’s betrayal, called a halt. The first turreted section abutting the now taller kitchen wing and an additional drawing room added on the east side in front of Burgoyne’s heightened dining room wing were the most obvious additions. Derby purchased the estate outright from William Lambert in 1788 including the remainder of the land that now falls within the perimeter walk today.

Derby had thrown himself into his sporting interests. His socialising with like-minded friends had resulted in the creation of the two great classic races at Epsom, The Derby and The Oaks. The former was the result of a coin being tossed to name the race. Had the reverse side of the coin fallen we would have had The Bunbury!

Derby’s second marriage to the actress Elizabeth Farren brought him happiness for many years until her death in 1829. Eventually Derby decided to sell his summer home at The Oaks and return permanently to his main seat at Knowlsey, Lancashire. He died shortly after the move in October 1834.

The curiously attractive ivy clad hotch-potch of architecture that now made up The Oaks passed into the hands of Sir Charles Edward Grey, former Chief Justice of Calcutta who had enjoyed Derby’s hospitality in the past. Described as of a Pickwick appearance, Grey was a studious and serious public servant and MP. He served as Governor in Jamaica in difficult circumstances. His unpopularity was more to do with the policies and inaction of the Crown rather than personal failings. Indeed he was given grudging acknowledgement of his dedication to a thankless task. In his six years of office the island was racked with economic woes and then in 1850 by cholera as well. Grey’s wife died from illness in London at this time to cap his distress. Eventually he retired to Hyde Park and then Tunbridge Wells.

Late in 1842 The Oaks was sold to Joseph Smith and his brother in law John Jones. They divided the house into two family dwellings and by 1848 when Mrs Jones died, the centre section of the house appears to have been lowered to three floors and castellation of the middle section walls had at last given the house a uniform look. Mr Jones and his daughter then left the house and moved to Wales. Subsequently Joseph Smith returned the house to a one dwelling layout and in the centre section further reduced the number of floors to two, while still retaining the same outer wall height. This provided a much more comfortable room size for bedrooms and all rooms in the areas between the entrance and the east wing. He moved the main staircase into the corridor between the entrance and the dining room, leaving a grand hallway with a gallery at high level serving the entrance to a principal bedroom and access to the west side of the house. During his ownership Joseph Smith also enlarged the farm and created the conservatory, traces of which can be seen in the flower beds of the grotto area in front of the upper car park. Joseph Smith died in 1876 having unsuccessfully tried to sell The Oaks three years earlier. He had added much to The Oaks in his thirty-four years ownership although all traces of Sir Robert Taylor’s core house had by then disappeared.

Daniel Aldersley Taylor was the next owner. A land-owner of farming and other properties around the Empire he was best known locally as a Brandy merchant with strong horse racing interests and his own horses. He held large house parties every year at The Oaks to celebrate the Oaks and the Derby. Taylor died in 1884 and his widow Louisa sold the house later that year.

By October 1884 The Oaks had passed to a Mr Higgins, a local land-owner who held the property for just four years before he placed it on the market once more.

The last family owners, Harry Berkeley James and his wife Lucy, moved into The Oaks in November 1888. Harry James was a self made man who had moved to Chile to take up a job as a shipping clerk when he was twenty-one. Harry was industrious and clever. In less than a decade he had a mining business on the Pacific coast exporting phosphates for military and farming markets. As his fortune grew he spent more and more of his time exploring the interior of Chile and cataloguing its bird and insect life. Singlehanded and on donkey back he explored the mountainous region of the central Andes and returned many specimens to the British Museum. During a brief return home in 1880 he met and married Lucy and they returned to Chile where their first two children were born.

Harry, Lucy and their children returned to England in 1886 when Harry decided to ‘retire’ from the business when he reached forty. On his return he was feted by the ornithological and zoological societies and he continued to fund and organize further explorations in South America. He looked for a suitable estate to settle down where he could be close to his beloved museums and institutions in London and pursue his countryside interests as well. He moved into The Oaks and set about improving the estate with taste and vigour for the large family he and Lucy planned. He rebuilt a grand staircase in the hall and made large scale improvements throughout the estate. He renewed all the chimneys at the house and farm, constructed a large aviary that stood near where the cafe was built and enlarged the conservatory. He built a gas plant and provided bright acetylene lighting throughout the house and outbuildings. He built a new bakehouse at the end of a substantial service wing linked to the main house. All this beginning to the dynasty he envisaged was undertaken in around three years during which the last child of The Oaks, Adrian, was born before Harry tragically succumbed to a heart condition in 1892.

Lucy managed the estate until around the start of the First World War. She was active in local politics and served the community in addition as church warden at St Peters in Woodmansterne. Lucy retired to a house in Belgravia and died in March 1926 aged 74.

The Oaks meanwhile had been purchased from Mrs James’s agent by the Surrey Joint Poor Law Commission for use as a Home for Women Epileptics. Facilities such as additional baths and fire escapes were added. Subsequently the patients were transferred to Effingham and the estate passed into the hands of Carshalton District Council in 1933 with a promise to preserve as much of the estate as was possible for all time!

The house echoed to the laughter of children once more in 1937 when it provided a home and temporary refuge for over twenty Basque children, who were refugees from the atrocity of German bombing of Guernica in support of the fascist army of General Franco in the Spanish civil war. The children were moved when the outbreak of WW2 threatened more German air-raids and The Oaks then saw the arrival of the Home Guard and Royal Air force personnel.

Bomb damage and other repairs went untouched by an indifferent Carshalton council after the war and ultimately they chose to follow a path that led to the final stage of demolition early in 1960. An ignominious end to a great, historic treasure.

Design for an excavation by Carshalton & District History & Archaeological Society at The Oaks, Carshalton, 2009
John Phillips & Paul Williams