Oatlands Palace, Surrey, England

Oatlands Palace is a former Tudor and Stuart royal palace which took the place of the former manor of the village of Oatlands in Surrey, England. Little remains of the original building, so excavations of the palace took place in 1964 to rediscover its extent.

The palace

Much of the foundation stone for the palace came from Chertsey Abbey which fell into ruins after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Henry VIII acquired the house in 1538, and rebuilt it for Anne of Cleves. The palace was built around three main adjoining quadrangular courtyards covering fourteen hectares and utilising an existing 15th-century moated manor house. He married Catherine Howard in the palace on 28 July 1540.

Image Public Domain, Wiki Commons

It subsequently became the residence, at various times, of Mary I, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I. It was to Oatlands that Mary Tudor retreated after her supposed pregnancy. Her previous residence, Hampton Court Palace, had housed the nursery staff that was assembled for the birth of the child. The announcement of a movement to Oatlands (considerably smaller than Hampton) ended any hope of a happy outcome of the Queen's pregnancy.

James I's wife Anne of Denmark employed Inigo Jones to design an ornamental gateway from the Privy Garden to the Park. In 1646, it was a temporary home of the infant Princess Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I of England and and later Duchess of Orleans, sister-in-law of Louis XIV, whose governess smuggled her into France in the summer of 1646.

Charles used it for his queen's residence, employed John Tradescant the elder for its gardens, and was later imprisoned here by the army in 1647. After the King's execution the palace was sold and demolished, leaving a single house - remote from the site of the palace itself - that may have originally functioned as a hunting lodge.

The house

This was later occupied and extended by Sir Edward Herbert, the Lord Chief Justice, but was forfeited to the Crown when he followed James II into exile. It was then awarded to his brother, Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, who was later the admiral in command of the English and Dutch Fleets at the Battle of Beachy Head.

The house was again enlarged by the Duke of Newcastle, Henry Clinton, who laid out formal gardens.

In 1790, Oatlands was leased from the Crown by the Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany the second son of George III, and the subject of the nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York. His architect was Henry Holland.

In his second London notebook, composer Joseph Haydn recorded a two-day visit in November 1791. He says:

The little castle, 18 miles from London, lies on a slope and commands the most glorious view. Among its many beauties is a most remarkable grotto which cost £25 000 sterling, and which was 11 years in the building. It is very large and contains many diversions, inter alia actual water that flows in from various sides, a beautiful English garden, various entrances and exits, besides a most charming bath.

He was the guest of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, playing music for four hours each evening.

The mansion and hotel

In 1794 the mansion was burnt down and was then rebuilt in the Gothic style of the period. After the death of the Duchess of York in 1820, the whole property was sold. It was bought by Edward Hughes Ball Hughes in 1824 (although it was not until after The Duke's death in 1827 that the sale was finally concluded) and again remodelled in 1830. Hughes had tried to dispose of the estate by public auction in 1829 but this part did not sell. He let the mansion and adjoining parkland to Francis, Lord Egerton for a seven-year period in 1832 and renewed for a similar period in 1839. The arrival of the London and South Western Railway in 1838 made the area ripe for daily commuting to Town. In 1846 the estate was broken up into lots for building development and sold at three public auctions in May, August and September of that year. Following a period of private ownership by James Watts Peppercorne, the house became a hotel in 1856, known as the South Western (later Oatlands Park) Hotel.

From 1916 to 1918, during World War I, the hotel was used as a hospital for New Zealand troops injured in France. Subsequently one of the main streets in Walton-on-Thames was renamed to New Zealand Avenue in honour of these men.

The four-star Oatlands Park Hotel now occupies the site where the Oatlands mansion (Oatlands House) once stood, and there are still some signs of the earlier stages in its existence visible within the core of the building. Contrary to claims sometimes made, it is not on the site of Oatlands Palace, which was situated further down the hill in Weybridge.

Oatlands Park timeline 1538 to 1790

• 1538 King Henry VIII acquires land and builds Oatlands Palace for his future Queen, Anne of Cleves, using materials from the dissolved Abbey at Chertsey.
• 1540 Henry and Anne marry but the marriage is later declared null and void. Henry marries Anne’s lady-in-waiting, Catherine Howard, in the chapel at Oatlands.
• 1548 On Henry’s death, Edward VI, Queen Mary and Elizabeth I all succeed him as residents of the palace. It is a particular favourite with ‘the Virgin Queen’ who uses it as a hunting lodge.
• 1615 Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, commissions architect Inigo Jones to design the Queen’s house at Greenwich, and a great gateway at Oatlands. The latter survives for 150 years before being broken up and used as rockery stone.
• 1630 King Charles I hires John Tradescant the Elder as ‘Keeper of His Majesty’s Gardens, Vines and Silkworms’ on the estate, at a salary of £100 per annum.
• 1638 John Tradescant the Elder dies and his son, John Tradescant the Younger succeeds him in the role at Oatlands.
• 1640 Charles I’s third son Henry is born at Oatlands.
• 1643 The estate becomes Prince Rupert’s temporary headquarters during the royalist march on London.
• 1647 King Charles I is imprisoned at Oatlands until his execution.
• 1648 The Palace is demolished, leaving one solitary hunting lodge on the estate.
• 1649 The estate is sold to Robert Turbridge of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for the sum of £4,023 18s.
• 1650 The remaining traces of the Palace are destroyed during Oliver Cromwell’s protectorate.
• 1652 A parliamentary survey confirms a house still exists on the estate.
• 1689 Sir Edward Herbert, the Lord Chief Justice is in residence but he follows James II into exile and the estate is forfeited to the crown. His brother Arthur, Earl of Torrington is granted the property.
• 1716 The Earl dies, bequeathing the estate to a friend, the Henry Clinton, 7th Earl of Lincoln, who lays out the high lawned terrace as you see it today. The Earl’s heir Henry Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, rebuilds and enlarges the house. His coat of arms is still to be seen on the main gates. He constructs the famous Shell Grotto.
• 1790 Oatlands is leased from the crown to the son of George III, Prince Frederick, Dike of York and Albany thought to be ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ in the nursery rhyme.

To the current day

Oatlands was offered in lots, and a small syndicate including Mr James Watts
Peppercorne, bought the mansion and some of the adjoining land for the purpose of converting it into a hotel. The house was again remodelled and the present Tudor Wing added. In 1856, the South Western Hotel opened with Mr. Peppercorne as its first Manager. For many years prior to the Great War, the South Western Hotel Company continued to own and run the property.

Famous guests who stayed at the South Western (later Oatlands Park) included popular actress Fanny Kemble, writer Emile Zola, politician Charles Dilke, novelist Anthony Trollope and artist Edward Lear.

In her biography of Lear called ‘The Life of a Wanderer’, authoress Vivien Noakes wrote “He needed some cedar trees that were within easy reach of London, and he found them at the Oatlands Park Hotel at Walton-on-Thames”. Whilst he was working on his nine foot long picture of the ‘Cedars of the Lebanon’, he penned letters to his friends including Emily Tennyson, Sir George Grove and Chichester Fortescue, to whom he wrote in 1860 saying “The hotel is a large and sumptuously commodious place... I have a large light bedroom and wanting for naught”.

In 1916 it was requisitioned and during the war was used as a casualty hospital for the New Zealand Forces serving in France. New Zealand Avenue, at the end of Oatlands Drive, is named in memory of the New Zealanders who died here.

Shortly after the war the property was purchased by Mr. M.F. North and Mr. R.W. Black, the founders of the North Hotels, and in 1924 the estate was enlarged by the purchase of Oatlands Lodge, a large mansion, now demolished, which stood on the site of the present lily pond. As the years have passed, the hotel has been enlarged further, notably in 1927, by the extension of the restaurant with the suites above and by the addition of the ballroom wing in 1930. Barclays Associate Hotels owned the property for some years until the mid 1980s.

Oatlands Investments Ltd acquired the hotel in 1986, restoring and refurbishing it to a standard which takes Oatlands Park Hotel into 2011 and beyond. Retained, is the character of the listed building and grounds, which are included in the Register of Gardens and Parks of Special Historic Interest.

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