Deepdene Estate, Surrey, England

Deepdene was an estate and country house occupying the south-east of Dorking, Surrey, England, the aspects of it that remains being a large minority of its woodland garden which is listed and interwoven among Dorking Golf Course.

History of the estate

A hillside manor that descended from earlier Earls of Surrey throughout the Middle Ages to the 23rd Earl of Arundel and Surrey who became the 5th Duke of Norfolk in 1652, it was sold by his descendant the 11th Duke of Norfolk in 1807 to the Hope banking family. Its descent was not straightforward, the family successfully put forward an acceptable stance and level of regal support in the Wars of the Roses, English Reformation and Marian Persecutions, the English Civil War and avoided the ravages of Popish Plot Anti-Catholicism which plagued five years of the reign of Charles II of England such as resulted in the execution of close kinsman William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford. The Duke of Norfolk of this family is today one of two people to be guaranteed a seat in the House of Lords, whose family arms appears in the chamber and who has mostly ceremonial roles he is expected to perform, rather than to speak in debates.

At the height of the regency architecture period the house was remodelled by the architect, William Atkinson for banker Thomas Hope, work that completed in 1819; it was occupied by his son, the MP Henry Hope from c. 1840.

Latter occupants and demolition

It was let, for a while to Lord William Beresford VC and his wife Lilian, formerly Duchess of Marlborough. Deepdene was placed into receivership and sold in 1917. It became a hotel during the inter-war years, before being demolished by British Rail in 1967. The site has since been redeveloped as a green office estate, and partly sold for private development.

Remnant gardens and Dorking Golf Course

The gardens were laid out by Howard, the 5th Duke, with gradual changes, in Italianate picturesque style. The horticulturalist and planner John Claudius Loudon praised the gardens as an exemplar of landscape architecture, one of the earliest uses of that phrase. A large minority of the gardens remain, which have been retained as features visible from the clubhouse to compliment the holes and rough of Dorking Golf Course. Parts of the garden have been sold for residential homes and gardens. The Deepdene (garden) is listed in the mid-category (II*) in terms of architecture and design as a 'park and garden' by English Heritage.