The Twickenham Museum
Exhibitions : Lost Houses

Hampton
Many substantial houses have been demolished, but Garrick's Villa remains

Old Ferry House

Until 1800 the population of Hampton had only gradually increased over the centuries. So houses were added slowly and only a few 'lost' due to dereliction or, occasionally, through being rebuilt. In 1801 the population of 1722 shared 141 houses. These were mainly clustered in the triangle of streets around St Mary's Church: Church Street and High Street and beside Old Ferry House in Thames Street on the riverside, with some properties in what later became Station Road.
There were two properties with very large amounts of land: The Manor House (see next page), and Newhouse, later known as the Old House or Old Farm House, with Chalk Farm. There were also a number of other properties with several acres of land. All of these properties would be redeveloped and most of the houses lost in the process; a few survive but with almost all their land stripped away.

St Albans

In Thames Street and its eastern extension Hampton Court Road, and its western extension Upper Sunbury Road, a number of large houses as well as smaller cottages have been lost. Several properties in these roads have gone to road widening, either to accommodate the trams in 1903 or to improve the width of what is still, in places, a narrow thoroughfare. In Hampton Court Road the house known as St Albans, built in about 1695 and named after the 5th Duke, who occupied the property from about 1797-1801, was left to the Council for use as a museum. However, years of inaction, decay and vandalism endangered the property and so it was demolished in 1972.

Garrick's Villa

Garrick's Villa, surviving, has now been divided into flats with houses on the land.

The property known as Riverdale, in Thames Street was absorbed into what became the Waterworks, and later demolished. Another Thames Street property, Spring Grove, had a roads constructed on its land from the 1870s, and the house was finally demolished in the early 1980s. Jessamine House in Thames Street, home of Thomas Rosoman, Manager of Sadlers Wells from 1741-71, was demolished in 1957.
Rosehill, home of the Library since 1902, was originally built in 1774 as a private house for John Beard, the celebrated tenor.

Church Street has lost two significant houses. One known as “the house of Edward Wood” was demolished in about 1818 and five substantial houses, now 6, 8, 10, 14 & 16 Church Street, built on the land in about 1820. Just over a century later Walton House, approximately where 27 Church Street now stands, was demolished and a number of houses built on the land.

In High Street, just north of what was until recently the White Hart (now converted into flats and known as White Hart House) was a Poor House known as the Cross House. It disappeared around 1775 when a replacement was built on the Common. Grove House, 100 High Street, is a 17th century house, now converted to offices

Manor House

Just off the western side of High Street, where modern Manor Gardens are now located, was the Manor House. It was demolished in 1937 when this section of the Manor House Estate was being developed. In fact plots of land had been offered from 1897 onwards and numerous roads, on both sides of the railway line, occupy what was formerly part of the Estate.

The Beveree

These roads include Wensleydale Road, Gloucester Road, Ormond Drive, Ormond Road, Ormond Crescent, Manor Gardens and Howard Close. Other buildings “lost” in High Street include The Elms (modern 69, 73, 73A, 75 & 77 High Street) which was burnt down by suffragettes in 1913 and Beveree (43 High Street) formerly a private house now occupied by Twickenham Preparatory School.

Castle House

Other lost houses in High Street include Castle House, now demolished and the site of Castle Business Village, and various other smaller cottages.

Houses lost in modern Station Road include Hill House, occupied for some years until 1776 by James Coutts of the well-known banking family. The house was demolished in 1901 for the Station Road filter beds which in turn were replaced by the Village Green housing development in 1997-98. Newhouse, as it was known in the 16th century, later the Old Farm House (see previous page) stood in what became Marlborough Road. It was demolished in the 1960s. The several hundred acres of farmland were developed from 1863 onwards, with much of the land divided into nurseries. Some of these businesses lasted up to the 1970s when the bulk of the Nurserylands housing estate was developed.

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