Sutton Place, 3 miles NE of Guildford in Surrey is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house built c.1525 [1] by Sir Richard Weston(d.1541), courtier of Henry VIII. It is of great importance to art history in showing some of the earliest traces of Italianate renaissance design elements in English architecture. In modern times the estate has had a series of super-rich owners, a trend started by J. Paul Getty, then the world's richest private citizen,[2] who chose to spend the last 17 years of his life there. Its current owner is the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. A definitive history of the house and manor, first published in 1893, was written by Frederic Harrison(d.1923), the jurist & historian, whose father had acquired the lease in 1874.
Contents |
Bindoff(1982) stated: "The building, with its perpendicular forms overlaid with Italian ornament, bears little resemblance to any other courtier's house of the 1520s, and it ranks with the vanished Nonsuch Palace as a landmark in the introduction of renaissance ideas"[3] Harrison (1899) stated it to be "a landmark in the history of art" (preface vii), and "a cinquecento conception in an English gothic frame".(p. 2). He identified it as "one of the first houses built as a peaceful residence, with no thought for defence...one of the first country houses in the modern sense, instead of an imitation castle...Weston perceived that the Wars of the Barons were over, that a gentleman might live at his ease under protection of law and the king's peace"(p. 5). Weston was certainly daring in his choice of eye-catching decoration above his front-door, for which he surely risked being ridiculed by his manly friends, including the king himself: innocent loving children at play: the amorini. Was this a signal by an avant-gard Sir Richard to his visitors, many of whom must have been valiant and experienced soldiers, that his house was to be a haven where love and play were de rigueur, not the old-fashioned militaristic conversations and behaviours? What a different message this was to that placed above the gates of Dante's Inferno: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". At Sutton the defensive towers and turrets of the old castles and fortified manors have been reduced to mere pilasters, covered with decorative terracotta, cariacatures of their former selves, perhaps as symbols of a deliberate rejection of defensive elements by Weston. The symbolism of the short stretch of crenellated parapet on the roofline above the front-door, one of the most potent aspects of the old defensive fortress, has been disarmed and cancelled-out by the almost jarring sight of a covering of yet more playful amorini. A more deliberately dissonant juxtaposition would be hard to imagine, yet that is what Sir Richard ordered to be erected. Sutton is clearly a house with a message to proclaim, which would not have been, could not have been, missed by its visitors.
The house is built of red brick and was originally of four blocks enclosing a quadrangle exactly 81 ft. 3 ins. square.[4] The northern block or wing was demolished in 1782, giving the house its present open appearance of a U-shape, the two surviving flanking wings forming a courtyard looking to the east. An unusual feature is that due to the extreme flatness of the site the entire ground floor of the whole house stands on the exact level of the soil, so that no step exists for entering the house on any side.[5] It is set within parkland at the end of a long driveway.
The decorative elements made from moulded terracotta on the facade are renaissance italianate. They consist of designs made from 40-50 different moulds,[6] most strikingly comprising a panel of two rows of amorini immediately above the entrance door. Such Italianate influence had never before been seen in English architecture, and is thought to have resulted from designs seen by Weston during his travels on embassies to France, where he might have seen some of the newly built chateaux on the Loire. With very minor exceptions no stone was used in the building and decoration of Sutton Place, only brick and terracotta.[7] Thus the bases, doorways, windows, string-courses, labels and other dripstones, parapet, angles, cornices and finials are all of moulded clay.[8] Such usage is only found in two other contemporary English buildings, East Barsham Manor in Norfolk and Layer Marney Tower in Essex. Its use was however rapidly abandoned in England, to appear again only in the Victorian era. The terracotta proved very hard-wearing and was described by Harrison in 1899 as "sharp and perfect" in condition.[9] The terracotta has however undergone in the 1980s a £12 million refurbishment involving much replacement, by the specialist firm Hathernware Ceramics Ltd, which used 18 different colour blends of clay to match the original variety of shades.[10] Prior to that it seems the only new elements were from 1875 when 10 new terracotta mullions and window-frames made by Messrs. Blashfield of Stamford from moulds of existing windows, replaced sash-windows inserted in the 18th.c. Two completely new small windows were at the same time created from terracotta in the gables of the quadrangle.[11]
Other terracotta decorative elements include framed mongrams of "R W", the builder, and reliefs of his rebus of the concave-ended barrel, probably signifying a "waisted-tun". The "tun" was a play on the last syllable of Weston. The concave-ended barrel is sometimes shown between two goose heads, the significance of which is unclear, unless it be the French word Oie plus -"tun". Willam Bolton(d.1532), prior of St Bartholomew's in Smithfield is also known to have used the rebus of a "tun", as can be seen in his surviving oriel window within the church in the form of a barrel with a bolt of a crossbow passing through vertically. Another recurring terracotta element is a double bunch of grapes, thought by some to represent hops. Harrison believes the story of Weston having been "the King's brewer" unfounded and "a vulgar story".[12] Similar hop-like bunches of grapes also feature at Layer Marney, and there is no evidence of Lord Marney, captain of the royal bodyguard, having been similarly a brewer.
The hall windows contain fine painted glass, much installed contemporaneously with the building of the house. These consist of shields of arms and other rebuses. There are in total 14 windows containing 92 separate lights, each containing a shield or quarry of painted glass. They are of different dates and quality, belonging to three separate epochs, but mostly relating to the builder's family. Some glass predates the house and is believed to have come from the earlier manor house of Sutton. Harrison states certain to be "of extraordinary beauty and rarity"..."of the finest painted glass of the time of Henry VIII".[13] Apart from family arms, there are shown the arms of King Richard III and emblems of the Roses, Red and White, all relating to the Battle of Bosworth at which Edmund Weston, Governor of Guernsey, father of Sir Richard, is thought to have assisted Henry Tudor by providing the use of money, ships or even a contingent of soldiers.[14]
Sutton Manor, within which the Tudor mansion is situated, appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Sudtone. It was held by Robert Malet. Its Domesday assets were: 3 hides; 1 mill worth 5s, 3 ploughs, 20 acres (81,000 m2) of meadow, woodland worth 25 hogs. It rendered £5. The previous manor house stood about a quarter of a mile from the present house, on the hill now occupied by St Edward's Chapel and Vine Cottage.[15]
Within Sutton Place was once the blood stained ruff of St Thomas More and a crystal pomegranate that once belonged to Queen Catherine of Aragon. The pomegranate emblem of the Queen features as a decoration in several places within the house, which suggested to Harrison that Weston certainly built the house before she was divorced by Henry VIII in 1533, and possibly before 1527 when it would have been known by his courtiers such as Weston that the King had turned his affections away from Catherine towards Anne Boleyn.[16]
Sutton Place remained in the Weston family and families related to it by marriage until 1919, although let out for part of the time. The family retained its Catholic religion from Tudor times, which precluded it from taking an active part in public life. Successive occupants thus lived as retiring country gentlemen of reduced means, which meant that the house escaped remodelling through the ages. A collection of portraits of the Weston, Webbe and Webbe-Weston family was sold at auction on 13 July 2005 by Sotheby's Olympia, London.[17]
"To the Memory of Melior Mary Weston of Sutton Place in the county of Surrey, Spinster. This Marble was erected as a tribute of sincere respect and gratitude by John Webbe Weston of Sarnesfield Court in the county of Hereford, Esq. who in pursuance of her last will and bequest succeeded to her name and estates. She was the last immediate descendant of an illustrious Family which flourished in this county for many successive generations, and with the ample possessions of their ancestors inherited their superior understanding and distinguished virtues obiit, 10 Junii, MDCCLXXXII, aet. 79. R.I.P."
John Webbe erected a tablet very similar to this one in Sarnesfield Church in 1795 to the memory of his other spinster distant cousin Ann Monington, a nun who had left her Hereford estates, including Sarnesfield, to him in 1780. Ann Monington's father Edward's second wife was Bridget Webbe and he died without male heir. John Webbe, to whom Ann Monington left the Sarnesfield Estate was the son of Bridget Webbe's uncle Thomas Webbe of Hammersmith.[29] It appears both bequests came to him due to his having adhered to the Roman Catholic religion, which other cousins in contention for the bequests had deserted, to the displeasure of the legators. John Webbe-Weston was the son of Thomas Webbe, a linen draper, of York Street, St Paul's, Covent Garden (in 1740s) and of Brook Green, Hammersmith (in 1770s) by Ann Tancred, daughter of Thomas Tancred, a woollen draper, of St Paul's, Covent Garden (in 1768) by Frances Gazaigne.[30] Thomas Tancred was the grandson of Sir William Tancred, 2nd Baronet(d.1703) of Aldeborough, Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, by Elizabeth Waldegrave, da. of Charles Waldegrave of Stanninghall, Norfolk, 2nd son of Sir Edward Waldegrave, 1st Baronet.[31] Thomas Webbe's mother was the sister of William Wolffe of St Giles-in-the-Field and Great Haseley, Oxon, who married Frances Weston, aunt of Melior Mary Weston. William Wolffe's mother was Anne Pincheon of Writtle, Essex, daughter of John Pincheon who was the son of Sir Edward Pincheon of Writtle by Dorothy Weston, sister of Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, who shared a common descent with Richard Weston the founder of Sutton Place from a certain Humphrey Weston.[32]
On the death of Francis Salvin in 1904 the estate passed to his niece's son Philip Witham, a solicitor, who died in 1921. Witham was born in 1842, 4th son of Sir Charles Witham Knt., a Captain in the Royal Navy, by Jane, daughter of John Hoy, of Stoke Priory. He was the grandson of William Witham and Dorothy Langdale. He was educated at Mount St Mary's and abroad and admitted a Solicitor in 1866. He became head of the firm of Messrs Witham, Roskell, Munster and Weld. He served as a member of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial Committee in 1904. He married in 1878 Louisa Salvin, da. of Marmaduke Salvin of Burn Hall, Durham, and niece of Captain Francis H. Salvin.[37] Witham had never held vacant possession of Sutton Place and sold it on the expiry of the Northcliffe tenancy in 1918. His wife Louise lived on until 1945. In July 1945 the voluminous Weston family estate papers were presented to Surrey Archives by Mrs D Wolseley of Guildford.[38]
There are two 16th.c. gatekeeper's lodges which flank the main entrance gates located on the north side of the A3 London road between London and Guildford.
A historical romance by Dinah Lampitt titled "Sutton Place" was published in 1983, the first volume of a trilogy. It supposes that a curse has been placed on all occupants of the manor since pre Norman times, a supposition for which little historical evidence exists as naturally all ancient manors have been the scenes of many misfortunes, indeed Sutton Place has suffered fewer than many. The front cover depicts the north wing gate-house as it might have appeared in Tudor times. [5]