Milton Court, Surrey, England

The manor remained with the nuns until the dissolution of the monasteries, when the king exchanged it for other Surrey lands with John Carleton of Walton on Thames, and Joyce his wife. From John Carleton the manor passed to Richard Thomas, who was holding it in 1552. Richard Thomas continued to hold under Philip and Mary; his tenure was not, however, popular among his tenants, who were indignant at his having inclosed lands on Milton Common otherwise known as Anstey Heath, where the aforesaid tenants had had common of pasture from time immemorial. Waterden Wood is also mentioned. Anstey Farm and Waterden lie on the two sides of the road in Milton Manor near Coldharbour. Milton Gore, close by, is the only part of the heath in question now uninclosed.

It is probable that the grant to Richard Thomas was only for a period of years, for at the death of his widow Katharine, who had subsequently become the wife of Saunders Wright, it reverted to the Crown. Queen Elizabeth in 1599 gave it to Ralph Lathom. The grant, however, was cancelled before it took effect, and the next year the manor passed from the Crown to George Evelyn in consideration of some £700. From that time it descended with Wotton in the Evelyn family.

Milton Court, the seat of the late Mr. L. M. Rate (ob. 1907), is the old manor-house of Milton. It is a fine Jacobean house, mostly of brick, with wings projecting in front and behind and a projecting portico in front, showing five gables to the front, over the wings and portico; and between these, to the back, there are three gables, the chimneys occupying the intermediate spaces on this side. The gables are all of the rounded pattern common in Kent and the Netherlands. The house was rebuilt by Richard Evelyn, and completed in 1611 (accounts in possession of Mr. Rate). There was no high hall, but a gallery ran along the front of the house with a projecting bay over the porch. This has been altered into a drawing-room and other rooms. The staircase in the east wing is a very fine specimen of Jacobean woodwork. Mr. Rate bought the house in 1864, and it was restored under the direction of the late C. Burgess.

A brass plate to Jeremiah Markland (1693–1776), the classical scholar, who lived at Milton Court one of a small number of monuments in the old church prior to its demolition preserved and set up in the new church.

From Victorian Web

The Milton Court estate near Dorking in Surrey has a long history. Mentioned in the Domesday Book as Mildeton, it was owned by private individuals until it became a priory in the fourteenth century. After the Reformation, the estate was granted to George Evelyn, father of the diarist, who built the basic E-shaped house still standing on the estate, its shape possibly chosen either to refer to the family name, or as a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth I. The Evelyn family (still in possession of nearby Wotton House) sold the estate in about 1830. It then passed through several hands, until in 1863 it was bought by the wealthy banker and lawyer Lachlan Mackintosh Rate, who owned it until 1936.

Under his ownership, the house was transformed, both inside and out. The architect engaged for this work was William Burges, who added "a 50 foot double bay dining room, an arcaded bay to the east garden front and an oriel window to the Jacobean stairwell" ("Milton Court — A Brief History," 2). In all, Burges added almost twenty new rooms, designing the ceilings and other details with his usual "insatiable relish for ornament" (ODNB). The large downstairs dining room at the back has a wooden ceiling with a stencilled design, and wood-panelled walls. The projecting oriel window halfway up the heavy Jacobean stairwell brings in much-needed light. The long upstairs room, once a drawing room, predates the Victorian period, but its painted, gold-leafed and stencilled ceiling, which was only discovered in the 1990s, (having been hidden, and luckily protected, by a covering of hessian) has also been confirmed as a Burges design. The Victorian fireplace in this room is presumed to be to Burges's design as well. Leading off this room through an ornate door is the unusual 'Flower Room,' once a boudoir — another 1870s Burges addition. This is a small room with sky-paintings in the panelled ceiling and individually-painted flower panels along the walls. It looks out onto the gardens at the back.

Here at Milton Court, the highly cultivated and sociable Rates were visited by both Matthew Arnold and George Meredith, as well as by various artists of the time, some of whom may have had a hand in the painted panels of the Flower Room. One of Mrs Rates's daughters, however, is thought to have been responsible for most of the work, which features flowers from their widely-admired gardens. Milton Court is now owned by a Life Assurance Company, UNUMProvident, which has taken a keen interest in restoring both the Jacobean and Victorian features of the house, opens it to the public on special occasions, and has been very helpful in the preparation of this short account. According to the company's own notes for visitors, "the appearance of the house today, internally and externally, owes much to Burges."

Note: One interesting point about the main (and very rare) Jacobean staircase here is that "the bellied parts of some of the newels are reinforced with iron rings and pins, a rare early example of wrought iron reinforcement."

William Burges's Contributions to Milton Court

• Milton Court, Dorking, enlarged and altered by William Burges, 1875
• Dining Room Ceiling (Detail)
• Burges's Oriel window
• Drawing Room Ceiling
• Drawing Room Ceiling (another angle)
• Drawing Room Fireplace
• Door from the drawing room into Mrs Rates's Flower Room
• The Flower Room (Mrs Rate's room)
• The Flower Room Mirror (1)
• The Flower Room Mirror (2)

this project is in HistoryLink