This section will introduce the people who owned and lived in the Five Houses between 1777 and the 1880s: who they were, where their money came from, how long they stayed, and how the houses passed from one family to another. It is the counterpart to Below stairs, which looks at the servants who worked in the same households.
[C: Stub, 2 October 2026. Not yet written. Proposed outline below for the editors to discuss.]
Proposed outline
The developer and the builders
[Robert Dent's speculation of 1777–78; the Norris brothers (Richard, Philip, Christopher) and John Scott.]
Who came to live here
[City merchants, bankers, lawyers and officials: their trades and fortunes, and why a house on the edge of Battersea's common appealed to them.]
Families and long tenures
[Houses that passed within families, or to widows, daughters and sisters who stayed on for decades.]
Owners and lessees
[Freeholders and leaseholders; the Willis family's freeholds; sales of 1853, 1858, 1868.]
The last residents
[The occupants who watched the estates being sold for building, leading into Part 3.]
Table: owners and occupiers of the Five Houses
[One combined table drawn from the house chapters in Part 2.]