The Underwater Boat House and spiral ramp entrance in Witley Park

The Underwater Boat House and spiral ramp entrance in Witley Park

This boathouse was built circa 1900 for James Whitaker Wright and may incorporate a pre-existing tunnel. It is constructed of shuttered concrete with some wood and glass elements.

The structure comprises a circular spiral ramp with stairs at the bottom that descends 15 metres below ground, providing access to three underground chambers. Above ground, a single storey concrete structure is set beside a circular light well, with a projecting round-headed arched entrance fitted with a wooden door.

The entrance leads to a spiralling ramp which becomes stairs in its final quarter. A glass-panelled ceiling lights the first room, situated 4.5 metres down, and the spiralling ramp itself. Below this is a semi-circular room with elliptical-arched alcoves. The main chamber adjoins this, rectangular in plan with three rectangular alcoves and a high vaulted roof lit by a glazed roof cover at its eastern end, with an air shaft towards the west. At the extreme west an elliptical-headed entrance leads to a flat-roofed chamber with double wooden gates opening directly onto Thursley Lake.

Whitaker Wright (1846–1904) was a financier and speculator who extensively developed the Lea Park estate, later renamed Witley Park. The house was rebuilt circa 1890 by H Paxton Watson in the neo-Tudor style, and many estate buildings were designed by Paxton Watson, though Edwin Lutyens designed a Bathing Pavilion and Boathouse in 1897. Wright was an amateur landscape gardener who transformed two existing smaller lakes into three larger artificial lakes—a square lake, a bathing lake, and the big lake (enlarged before 1916 to become Thursley Lake)—completed over six or seven years by 400 workmen. The lakes were decorated with numerous statues and fountains.

The Underwater Boat House housed a boat that Wright used for rowing to an artificial island in the middle of the big lake, where he had created an underground smoking room and billiard chamber. A tunnel in this position is shown on the 1874 Ordnance Survey map.

Wright's company, London and Globe, which promoted the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, announced its insolvency in 1900, ruining many investors. A warrant for Wright's arrest was issued in March 1903, and he was apprehended in New York. At trial in 1904 he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years penal servitude but died by suicide, swallowing a cyanide capsule.

After his death the estate was divided and sold off. The main house was gutted in 1952 and subsequently demolished, replaced by a house built in 1960–1961 by Patrick Gwynne. Much of the remaining estate is now part of a conference centre, though some land including the Devil's Punchbowl and Hindhead Common is now owned by the National Trust.