Nonsuch Park House

Nonsuch Park House is a large building currently used as a museum, educational facility, and catering venue. It was designed and built between 1802 and 1806 by the distinguished architect Sir Jeffry Wyattville for Samuel Farmer in the Tudor Gothic style. The house incorporated and extended an earlier mid-18th-century dwelling, with further additions made in 1845 in matching style to the south (garden) front and service wing. The building is asymmetrical, predominantly two storeys high, though the tower and service wing rise to three storeys.

Materials and General Character

The main body of the house is faced with Roman cement, while the service wing is constructed of red brick. The roof is slate, with octagonal chimneystacks disguised as turrets. Throughout the building there are octagonal corner turrets, crenellated parapets, and hoodmouldings over the windows. The windows are mainly sashes with glazing bars in the original Wyattville sections. The principal ground-floor rooms are fitted with folding wooden shutters decorated with Gothic arched details.

Plan

Wyattville's house forms an L-shaped plan, connected to the surviving remnants of the mid-18th-century house which projects as a spur at the northern end. The building was extended to the south-east and north around 1845.

Exterior

The north or entrance front is dominated by a projecting tower inspired by illustrations of the demolished Nonsuch Palace. The tower has octagonal turrets and a four-centred archway below. The spandrels of the archway contain the Tudor Coat of Arms on one side and the Farmer Coat of Arms on the other. Behind the archway is a vaulted roof with round-headed arches on each side and a wide four-centred arched doorway. The doorway has double doors glazed in their upper sections, flanked by sidelights. A terracotta tablet beside the right side of the door is inscribed with the date 1543 and the name of Henry VIII in Latin—a fragment salvaged from Nonsuch Palace.

To the right of the entrance is a single bay with a ground-floor triple window from the 1840s. This has marginal glazing and contains stained glass depicting Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I. To the left are three bays with a ground-floor colonnade of four-centred arches, followed by a projecting gabled former chapel with a tall three-tier arched window and a gabled wooden bellcote. Attached to the east is a three-storey brick service wing with four arches forming a ground-floor colonnade, incorporating the earlier service wing and stables.

The west side has three windows, including a blocked window on the first floor to the right and an off-centre crenellated tower. The splayed corner to the south front has buttresses and a clock face on the first floor.

The south front features a full-height polygonal bay to the west, with elaborate cinquefoil-headed lights serving the Drawing Room and flanked by buttresses. Adjoining this to the right is a first-floor oriel and ground-floor French windows with a traceried head and mid-19th-century pierced stone balustrading with steps and urns. There are three further bays belonging to Wyattville's original building. Attached to the east is the circa 1845 addition in matching style and materials, with two mullioned and transomed windows—one being a full-height three-light bay—and an arched doorcase. This front terminates in a single-storey gabled section from the 1840s with a five-light canted bay and gabled doorcase. Behind this is the three-storey brick service wing with a stone inscribed with the initials "W G F", terminating in a three-storey brick tower with an octagonal turret at the eastern corner.

The western front of the service wing is three storeys high except for a single-storey projecting octagonal game larder with a slate roof and wooden louvre. To the north is a single-storey brick former stable range.

Interior

The ground floor features a fine enfilade of principal rooms with wide interconnecting doors designed for entertaining. These rooms largely retain their original Wyattville fittings and mid-19th-century brass gas chandeliers. Painted family coats of arms are thought to have been added around 1862 on the marriage of William Robert Farmer into the Williams family.

The front vestibule has a fine double door with Gothic arch and lancet glazed inserts, and an original cornice with a band of Victorian stencilled mottoes below. The former Library (later Small Drawing Room) in the north-west corner has a cornice with shields and an elaborate Gothic ribbed ceiling rose with a Tudor Rose at its centre. It contains three built-in Gothic arched bookcases, an arched fitting with mirror and finials, and a buffet with a slate surface and shelving. There is elaborate dado panelling, and four-panel Gothic-style folding double doors lead to the Drawing Room.

The Drawing Room is octagonal in shape and has an elaborate cornice featuring heraldic shields of the Farmer family and the Meekes of Beddington, a carved band with pierced quatrefoils, and an elaborate ribbed ceiling with a ceiling rose decorated with quatrefoil motifs and a Tudor Rose finial. The room contains two arched alcoves with mirrors and quatrefoil bands, and a fireplace with a four-centred arched marble surround, cast iron firegrate, and cusped mirror with finials and the family Coat of Arms above.

The adjoining Anteroom has stained glass windows incorporating four roundels thought to have come from pre-Revolutionary France, depicting St Jerome, Pope Gregory, a female peasant, and possibly Elijah. There is a cornice with carved motifs and band, an original Gothic wooden pelmet, two pointed arched ribbed alcoves, and double doors with three painted family crests above: the Farmer family impaling Wilkinson on the west wall, the Farmer family impaling Williams on the north wall, and the Farmer family impaling the Meeke family on the east wall.

The Dining Room has a ribbed ceiling decorated with roses, portcullis, and fleur-de-lys emblems. There is an elaborate Victorian carved wooden fireplace with the initials "W G F" inscribed, decorated columns, an inner cast iron firegrate flanked by geometric tiling, and an elaborate mirror bearing a family shield and the motto "HORA SEMPER". The room also has a dado rail and elaborate window shutters.

The Vestibule has panelled arched doors and two painted Coats of Arms showing the Farmer quartering the Gamul family and the Farmer impaling the Williams family. The adjoining room was built as a library when the original library was converted into a small drawing room. It has a ribbed ceiling and oak bookshelves. The end room on this floor was probably a smoking room or billiard room and has a stone fireplace.

The corridor to the north-east of the ground floor originally contained a Powder Room (for guns) and a Business Room, but these have been incorporated into a modern kitchen. The corridor has underfloor heating which originally heated a conservatory. The cellar has brick vaults with stone flags and brick paving, and includes brick and stone wine bins and a brick stepped barrel chute.

The main staircase has stone steps, a mahogany handrail, and decorative cast iron balustrading with quatrefoil inserts and a hexagonal niche for a lantern. The staircase window contains two 18th-century stained glass panels after Salvatore Rosa.

The first floor has a bolection-moulded fireplace and a black marble fireplace in the principal bedroom over the Drawing Room. The adjoining bedroom has a black marble fireplace and a painted ceiling with a Tudor Rose ceiling rose and cornice with paterae. A further bedroom has an arched fireplace with a circa 1880 Japanese-style folding tiled firegrate.

In the rear service wing, the former Servants' Hall has a fireplace with paterae. The former laundry has an early 18th-century stone fireplace and tiled floor, and the adjoining laundry room has a square copper, tiled floor, and wooden pump. The adjoining former housekeeper's room has a round-headed alcove, probably for china. The former Dairy has Delft tiles. The Kitchen has an 18th-century fireplace, a circa 1860 iron range, and a late 19th-century wooden dresser. The Game Larder has a lantern with hoist for hanging game and slate shelves. The stable has a loose box but no fittings remain.

History

Nonsuch Park was created by Henry VIII in 1534 when he destroyed the village of Cuddington to build a hunting lodge. Nonsuch Palace was begun in 1538, completed by the Earl of Arundel, and sold to Queen Elizabeth I in 1592. Charles II gave the property to Lady Castlemaine in 1680, and the palace was mainly demolished between 1682 and 1688. Nonsuch Park House is situated some distance to the north-east of the Banqueting House and the site of the Tudor palace. Part of the service wing is the remaining portion of a mid-18th-century house.

In 1799 the park was acquired by Samuel Farmer, a merchant from a family trading in the West Indies and India, to create a family seat. He rebuilt or enlarged the existing building on the site. John Nash and Jeffry Wyatt were approached, and the commission was given to Jeffry Wyatt (later Wyattville, 1766–1840). The house was built between 1802 and 1806. This was an early commission in the Tudor Gothic style, which reached its ultimate expression in Wyattville's works at Windsor Castle. The northern front of the property was based on illustrations of Nonsuch Palace, and a terracotta datestone from the demolished palace was salvaged and placed by the main entrance.

In 1838 Samuel Farmer died and was succeeded by his grandson William Francis Gamul Farmer. In 1845 Nonsuch Park House was extended by one bay to the south-east in matching style, and the service wing was extended. In 1860 William Robert Farmer succeeded to the estate and is thought to have added painted coats of arms following his marriage in 1862 into the Williams family.

The Farmer family owned the property until 1936, when the land was sold as recreational land to a consortium composed of the London County Council, Surrey County Council, the Borough of Sutton, Cheam and Worcester Park, and the soon-to-be Borough of Epsom and Ewell. Legal interest was vested in the London County Council (later transferred to Surrey County Council after 1986), and responsibility for managing the property was vested in a joint management committee of elected representatives from the councils of Sutton, Cheam, and Epsom and Ewell. Latterly the ground floor of the building was let to a catering firm, the first floor used for further education, and the kitchen wing and stables used as a museum.

Significance

Nonsuch Park House was designed by the eminent late Georgian architect Jeffry Wyattville, enlarging the remains of a mid-18th-century house. It is an important and early commission by Wyattville in the Tudor Gothic style, with the north front based on illustrations of the demolished Tudor Nonsuch Palace—a style which culminated in Wyattville's improvements to Windsor Castle in the 1820s. The building survives substantially as built, apart from some extensions of circa 1845 in matching style, and has a complete Wyattville interior including a suite of principal rooms with outstanding quality fittings, main staircase, and painted ceiling to a first-floor room. The building also retains good quality mid-18th-century and 19th-century fittings.