|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Richings Park today ...
Notice Board
| Poynings (in west Sussex, north west of Brighton), Fitz Payne, Brian, Latimer Warkworth, Seymour, Cockermouth and Seymour of Trowbridge. He died in 1749. | |
| 1749 | The Dowager Duchess of Somerset, who changed the name of the house to Percy Lodge. On her death the estate passed to her son-in-law ... |
| 1754 | ... The Duke of Northumberland who sold Richings to ... |
| c1772 | ... Sir John Maine Coghill, whose widow sold it to ... |
| 1876 | ... the Rt. Hon. John Sullivan PC, MP, Under Secretary to the Special Commissioners for the Affairs of India. (A contemporary of Lord Wellesley - later the Duke of Wellington - whose policies in India he had supported on occasions.) In 1800 he bought the Rectory and Rectorial Manor, henceforth held in conjunction with Richings, and became the Lay Rector, Patron of the Living and Lord of the Rectorial Manor. He died in 1839. (Sullivan Memorials in Iver Church and family vault in Iver churchyard) Richings passed to his son ... |
| 1839 | ... John Augustus Sullivan, Principal Marshall of Jamaica, who sold Richings to ... |
| 1855 | Charles Meeking, who died in 1872. |
| 1872 | His son Col Charles Meeking, who died in 1912, married a daughter of Christopher Towers. |
| 1912 | His grand-daughter Viola Meeking, later Lady Apsley, who sold Richings to the Sykes Brothers in 1922. (Memorials to Meekings in Iver Church and churchyard.) |
To this list should be added the Tower family of Huntsmoore (hence Tower Arms and Cottages) who owned large sections of Thorney and Iver from the late 1600s to the 1900s and whose farms including Old Slade, Larbourne and Sutton and associated land became incorporated into the last Richings Estate. There were 6 consecutive heads of the family called Christopher Tower.
Richings Park Mansion/House (Richings Lodge, Percy Lodge)
Lord Bathurst entertained the notables of his day such as Pope, Gay,
Bolingbroke, Addison and Swift for a break from the "smoke of London" in Richings Mansion. He laid out the park in the landscaped romantic style of the period with woodland, including the existing Old Wood, avenues of trees and a boating lake 550 yards long from the dammed Withy Brook, vestiges of all of which remain today. The poet Alexander Pope made mention in his Moral Essays: Epistle IV - to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington - 11 177-8:
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil?
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle?
An avenue of chestnut trees which ran parallel to the lake was named Pope's walk after the poet.
Lady Hertford (later Duchess of Somerset) called the house Percy Lodge and described the beauty of the grounds and surrounding countryside in her letters in 1739 - 41. The name Percy lodge was later given
