Foxwarren Park
| Foxwarren Park | |
|---|---|
 The newly-constructed house was pictured in the Illustrated London News in 1860 | |
| Type | House |
| Location | Wisley, Surrey |
| Coordinates | 51°19′43″N 0°27′08″W / 51.3286°N 0.4521°W |
| Built | 1860 |
| Architect | Frederick Barnes |
| Architectural style(s) | Gothic Revival |
| Governing body | Privately owned |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
| Official name | Foxwarren Park |
| Designated | 22 September 1981 |
| Reference no. | 1189110 |
  Location of Foxwarren Park in Surrey | |
Foxwarren Park, at Wisley in Surrey, is a Victorian country house. It was designed in 1860 by the railway architect Frederick Barnes, in conjunction with his client, the brewer and member of Parliament, Charles Buxton. It is a Grade II* listed building.
From 1919 to 1955, it was owned by Alfred Ezra who was President of the Avicultural Society and assembled an outstanding collection of rare birds and animals on the estate. It was then acquired by Hannah Weinstein who used it as the location for films and TV series including The Adventures of Robin Hood.
History
Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist and politician, was also an amateur architect.[1] Having rented a range of properties around Weybridge in the 1850s, he purchased the site for Foxwarren Park in 1855.[1] He was heavily involved in the design of the new house, working with Frederick Barnes, known more for his designs for railway stations, particularly in Norfolk. The style is described as "harsh Victorian Gothic".[2] The house was the inspiration for E. H. Shepard's illustrations of Toad Hall in Kenneth Grahame's book, The Wind in the Willows.[3][4]
The house was acquired by Alfred Ezra in 1919, who owned it until his death in 1955. He was an enthusiastic breeder of birds and created a large private collection of rare birds and animals on the estate. From 1920 to 1940, this was probably the finest private zoo in the world.[5][6] For example, it contained a pair of pink-headed ducks which were the last of their kind.[7]
During World War II, the Foxwarren estate was the site of research facilities run by the engineering firm Vickers and saw work on the development of Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb.[8]
In the 1950s, the house and estate was owned by Hannah Weinstein's Sapphire Films which built a castle in the deer park and used it as the location for the successful TV series, The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene.[9] The similar show, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, also used it as a location. Weinstein used writers who had been blacklisted in the US as communists and this exile community included Christina Stead, who had a cottage in the grounds.[10]
In 1978, the house was used as the main location for the horror movie, The Comeback.[11]
Architecture
The house is built of red brick, in a polychromatic design, with terracotta dressings and blue diapering.[2] The house is Grade II* listed.[2] The architectural critic Ian Nairn described the Model Farm attached to Foxwarren Park as "a true Struwelpeter mid-Victorian nightmare".[12] It has a separate Grade II* listing.[13]
The house's architecture is referenced in Henry James' novel, The Spoils of Poynton:[14]
...out of a Philistine, a tasteless, a hideous house; the kind of house the very walls and furniture of which constitute a kind of anguish for such a woman as I suppose the mother to be. That kind of anguish occurred to me, precisely, as a subject, during the two days I spent at Fox Warren...
Notes
- ^ a b Nairn, Pevsner & Cherry 1971, pp. 596–8.
- ^ a b c England, Historic. "FOXWARREN PARK, Wisley – 1189110- Historic England". historicengland.org.uk.
- ^ "Foxwarren Park, near Cobham, Surrey". www.victorianweb.org.
- ^ Michelle Nichols (10 March 2001), "Is this house the real Toad Hall?", The Scotsman
- ^ J. Delacourt (1956), "Alfred Ezra", Ibis, 98 (1): 135–136, doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1956.tb03033.x
- ^ Forest and Outdoors, 35: 117, 1939,
Mr. Ezra's hobby is his private zoo. It is probably the finest one in the world.
{{citation}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Robert J. Hoage, William A. Deiss, ed. (1996), New Worlds, New Animals: From Menagerie to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century, JHU Press, p. 148, ISBN 9780801853739
- ^ "Dam good show from Brooklands to honour Barnes Wallis – Woking News and Mail". www.wokingnewsandmail.co.uk.
- ^ Michael Eaton (2016), "Notes from Sherwood", Lindsay Anderson Revisited, Springer, p. 87–89, ISBN 9781137539434
- ^ "Walton on Thames – rescued by Rover and Robin Hood", The Studio Tour, 3 February 2015
- ^ Derek Pykett (2008), British Horror Film Locations, McFarland, p. 29, ISBN 9780786451937
- ^ Nairn, Pevsner & Cherry 1971, p. 67.
- ^ Stuff, Good. "Home Farm House and Barns, Elmbridge, Surrey". www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk.
- ^ M.C. Rintoul (2014), "Foxwarren Park", Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction, Routledge, p. 425, ISBN 9781136119323
References
- Nairn, Ian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (1971). Surrey. The Buildings of England. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-300-09675-5.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)