Houses: Wandsworth Lodge.
People: McKellars.
People: De Selincourts. [to follow]
Wandsworth Common — Capital Family House, with Pleasure grounds, Garden, and Land, in the county of Surrey.
By Mr HOGGART, at the Mart, THIS DAY, May 22, at Twelve, by orders of the Executors,
WANDSWORTH LODGE, the late Residence and Property of James Newsome, Esq. deceased, delightfully situate on the road from Upper Tooting to Wandsworth, verging uuo[p Wandsworth Common, six miles......
Add the references to McKellar's occupancy - and the McKellar's Triangle.
Add the mention of Wandsworth Lodge in John Buckmaster's perambulation of the 1860s, by which time Henry McKellar had been long-dead.
[From May 2022's Chronicles.]
A massive clearance sale at Wandsworth Lodge — one of the oldest and grandest of the houses on the edge of the Common, just prior to its demolition. Everything must go: horse-drawn carriages, cows, pig, peacock, lavatory and urinal. Soon three new streets of terraced houses will be built on the site.
WANDSWORTH COMMON
Clearance Sale — Wandsworth Lodge, Trinity-road, Wandsworth Common.
Messrs, J. Mclachlan & sons have been favoured with instructions from C. De Selincourt, Esq., to SELL by AUCTION, on the premises as above, on Wednesday, 13th May, 1885, at 2 o'clock precisely, the BEDDING-OUT PLANTS, lawn mower, garden engine, hose and reel, hand and wheelbarrows, vase, garden seats, iron hurdling, striking frames, staging, lavatory and urinal, handsome brougham, waggonette by Perry of Bristol, a four-wheel chaise, boat, a shorthorn cow calving this month, an Alderney cow in milk a young black Berkshire sow, a magnificent peacock, a quantity of poultry, and sundry outdoor items and other effects.
May be viewed the morning of sale, and catalogues had of the Auctioneers, Clapham Common. S.W.
Wandsworth Lodge was owned for about a decade by Charles Alexandre De Selincourt, who describes himself in the 1881 Census as "Mantle and Cloak manufacturer" (the last word crossed out by the Enumerator and "Dressmaker" added).
He had many children, a number of whom were born in Wandsworth Lodge.
His daughter, Dorothy (aka "Daphne"), married A.A Milne — so Winnie the Pooh's "Christopher Robin" was his grandson. It seems likely (to me) that Eeyore was modelled on a Wandsworth Common donkey — our Common was famous for its donkeys. But that's a story for another time.
A few years after the sale, the house, gardens and had gone, and several new streets of terraced houses built in their place — Crockerton, Dalebury, and Hendham Roads.
The De Selincourts had moved here from Leigham Court Road, Streatham [date?]. The pater familiaswas Charles Alexandre De Selincourt, born in Paris to an English dressmaker, Adriana Arundell, and Amedee de Selincourt — purportedly an aristocrat who could not marry a commoner. The couple appear never to have married, but Charles adopted his father's surname. He became a naturalised British citizen, and, as a "Mantle and Cloak Manufacturer", employed 350 people.
I have read in descendants' rseaerches that it was his mother, Adriana, who designed the clothes that made the family's fortune. I have found her in a number of Censuses living in Wandsworth or Battersea. For example in 1861 she is living in Chesterfield Villas, St Anne's Road, and in 1881 in Heath Villa, on St James's Road (now Drive).
Here is a remarkably evocative advert, in The Field, The Gentleman's Newspaper for 12 June 1875, describing the Wandsworth Lodge that so attracted the De Selincourts:
THE FIELD, THE GENTLEMAN'S NEWSPAPER.
Upper Tooting.
A very valuable Freehold Property, situate within about eight minutes' walk of Wandsworth common station (whence there are frequent trains to Victoria and London Bridge), and consisting of a comfortable Family Residence, with stabling, farmery, and other outbuildings, charming old pleasure grounds, extensive orchards and kitchen gardens, with ornamental avenues of trained and standard fruit trees and two excellent meadows; in all upwards of 16 acres.
The property possesses residential attractions seldom to be met with so near to London, and equally valuable for building purposes.
MESSRS DEBENHAM, TEWSON, and FARMER will SELL, at the Mart, on Tuesday, July 18 at Two, in One Lot (with possession (the important Freehold Property, known as WANDSWORTH LODGE, Upper Tooting, comprising a commodious family residence, containing a prospect room, commanding splendid views, fourteen bed and dressing rooms, and lumber rooms, drawing and dining rooms each about 27ft by 16ft 6in, including bow (the letter room communicating with a spacious and lofty conservatory), bath room, morning room about long including bow, large kitchen, butler's pantry, and ample offices; an excellent detached billiard room or ball room about 46ft 6in by 20ft 6in
[I]nclosed yards with stabling for eight horses, double coach house, harness and men's rooms, capital laundry, coal and coke houses, cow houses and sheds, piggeries, pigeon and poultry houses, large cart shed, barn, granary, &c.
There are three entrance lodges, a bailiff's cottage, an extensive series of glass houses, including vineries, strawberry, peach, fig, orchid, rhododendrons, and plant houses, ranges of melon, pine, and forcing pits, tool and potting houses, mushroom house, two prolific orchards, two very large walled kitchen gardens abundantly stocked with wall, standard, and espalier fruit trees, including over 160 varieties of pears, likewise a potato ground.
An adequate description of the beautiful grounds cannot be given within the limits of an advertisement. Suffice it to say, they embrace a handsome wide-spreading lawn, with fountain, two other lawns, charming shrubbery walks, an island &c; the whole entirely screened from the road by shady plantations of many years' growth, and profusely adorned with fine old ornamental timber (in which is a rookery), and splendid specimens of the choicest conifers, including cedrus deodars, araucaria imbricata, cryptomeria, &c; also two capital grass paddocks, skirted by plantation walk; the total quantity being about 18a 1r 13p [i.e. 18 acres 1 rood 13 perches].
The property has a frontage of nearly 1000 feet to Trinity road (the main road from Wandsworth to Tooting), and a long frontage to a road at the rear [today's Beechcroft Rd]; with these facilities for development the greater portion could be advantageously laid out for building leaving the present house and part of the grounds intact.
The soil is gravel and the neighbourhood remarkably healthy.
Particulars and cards to view of the Auctioneers, 80 Cheapside, where a series of photographs may be seen.
Notice the last line of the advert: "where a series of photographs may be seen".
Wouldn't it wonderful if we could find these photographs.
[Note, 1.6.2022: It would be good to work out when exactly the de Selincourts moved in/out. 1875—1885? And to date the roads. I believe Brodrick and Wandle Roads were laid out first (late 1870s?) and a number of houses built. At this time the back gardens of the southern side of Wandle Road would have backed onto the edge of the De Selincourt garden. Hendham etc were built later, presumably after Wandsworth Lodge was demolished. Check maps etc.]
A massive clearance sale at Wandsworth Lodge — one of the oldest and grandest of the houses on the edge of the Common, just prior to its demolition. Everything must go: horse-drawn carriages, cows, pig, peacock, lavatory and urinal. Soon three new streets of terraced houses will be built on the site.
WANDSWORTH COMMON
Clearance Sale — Wandsworth Lodge, Trinity-road, Wandsworth Common.
Messrs, J. Mclachlan & sons have been favoured with instructions from C. De Selincourt, Esq., to SELL by AUCTION, on the premises as above, on Wednesday, 13th May, 1885, at 2 o'clock precisely, the BEDDING-OUT PLANTS, lawn mower, garden engine, hose and reel, hand and wheelbarrows, vase, garden seats, iron hurdling, striking frames, staging, lavatory and urinal, handsome brougham, waggonette by Perry of Bristol, a four-wheel chaise, boat, a shorthorn cow calving this month, an Alderney cow in milk a young black Berkshire sow, a magnificent peacock, a quantity of poultry, and sundry outdoor items and other effects.
May be viewed the morning of sale, and catalogues had of the Auctioneers, Clapham Common. S.W.
Wandsworth Lodge was owned for about a decade by Charles Alexandre De Selincourt, who describes himself in the 1881 Census as "Mantle and Cloak manufacturer" (the last word crossed out by the Enumerator and "Dressmaker" added).
He had many children, a number of whom were born in Wandsworth Lodge.
His daughter, Dorothy (aka "Daphne"), married A.A Milne — so Winnie the Pooh's "Christopher Robin" was his grandson. It seems likely (to me) that Eeyore was modelled on a Wandsworth Common donkey — our Common was famous for its donkeys. But that's a story for another time.
A few years after the sale, the house, gardens and had gone, and several new streets of terraced houses built in their place — Crockerton, Dalebury, and Hendham Roads.
The De Selincourts had moved here from Leigham Court Road, Streatham [date?]. The pater familias was Charles Alexandre De Selincourt, born in Paris to an English dressmaker, Adriana Arundell, and Amedee de Selincourt — purportedly an aristocrat who could not marry a commoner. The couple appear never to have married, but Charles adopted his father's surname. He became a naturalised British citizen, and, as a "Mantle and Cloak Manufacturer", employed 350 people.
I have read in descendants' rseaerches that it was his mother, Adriana, who designed the clothes that made the family's fortune. I have found her living in Wandsworth or Battersea in a number of Censuses. For example in 1861 she is living in Chesterfield Villas, St Anne's Road, and in 1881 in Heath Villa, on St James's Road (now Drive).
Here is a remarkably evocative advert, in The Field, The Gentleman's Newspaper for 12 June 1875, describing the Wandsworth Lodge that so attracted the De Selincourts:
THE FIELD, THE GENTLEMAN'S NEWSPAPER.
Upper Tooting.
A very valuable Freehold Property, situate within about eight minutes' walk of Wandsworth common station (whence there are frequent trains to Victoria and London Bridge), and consisting of a comfortable Family Residence, with stabling, farmery, and other outbuildings, charming old pleasure grounds, extensive orchards and kitchen gardens, with ornamental avenues of trained and standard fruit trees and two excellent meadows; in all upwards of 16 acres.
The property possesses residential attractions seldom to be met with so near to London, and equally valuable for building purposes.
MESSRS DEBENHAM, TEWSON, and FARMER will SELL, at the Mart, on Tuesday, July 18 at Two, in One Lot (with possession (the important Freehold Property, known as WANDSWORTH LODGE, Upper Tooting, comprising a commodious family residence, containing a prospect room, commanding splendid views, fourteen bed and dressing rooms, and lumber rooms, drawing and dining rooms each about 27ft by 16ft 6in, including bow (the letter room communicating with a spacious and lofty conservatory), bath room, morning room about long including bow, large kitchen, butler's pantry, and ample offices; an excellent detached billiard room or ball room about 46ft 6in by 20ft 6in
[I]nclosed yards with stabling for eight horses, double coach house, harness and men's rooms, capital laundry, coal and coke houses, cow houses and sheds, piggeries, pigeon and poultry houses, large cart shed, barn, granary, &c.
There are three entrance lodges, a bailiff's cottage, an extensive series of glass houses, including vineries, strawberry, peach, fig, orchid, rhododendrons, and plant houses, ranges of melon, pine, and forcing pits, tool and potting houses, mushroom house, two prolific orchards, two very large walled kitchen gardens abundantly stocked with wall, standard, and espalier fruit trees, including over 160 varieties of pears, likewise a potato ground.
An adequate description of the beautiful grounds cannot be given within the limits of an advertisement. Suffice it to say, they embrace a handsome wide-spreading lawn, with fountain, two other lawns, charming shrubbery walks, an island &c; the whole entirely screened from the road by shady plantations of many years' growth, and profusely adorned with fine old ornamental timber (in which is a rookery), and splendid specimens of the choicest conifers, including cedrus deodars, araucaria imbricata, cryptomeria, &c; also two capital grass paddocks, skirted by plantation walk; the total quantity being about 18a 1r 13p [i.e. 18 acres 1 rood 13 perches].
The property has a frontage of nearly 1000 feet to Trinity road (the main road from Wandsworth to Tooting), and a long frontage to a road at the rear [today's Beechcroft Rd]; with these facilities for development the greater portion could be advantageously laid out for building leaving the present house and part of the grounds intact.
The soil is gravel and the neighbourhood remarkably healthy.
Particulars and cards to view of the Auctioneers, 80 Cheapside, where a series of photographs may be seen.
Notice the last line of the advert: "where a series of photographs may be seen".
Wouldn't it wonderful if we could find these photographs.
[Note, 1.6.2022: It would be good to work out when exactly the de Selincourts moved in/out. 1875—1885? And to date the roads. I believe Brodrick and Wandle Roads were laid out first (late 1870s?) and a number of houses built. At this time the back gardens of the southern side of Wandle Road would have backed onto the edge of the De Selincourt garden. Hendham etc were built later, presumably after Wandsworth Lodge was demolished. Check maps etc.]
[This is hw I discussed Wandsworth Lodge and the de Selincourts in Chronicles, May 2022. It may be identical to above.
A massive clearance sale at Wandsworth Lodge — one of the oldest and grandest of the houses on the edge of the Common, just prior to its demolition. Everything must go: horse-drawn carriages, cows, pig, peacock, lavatory and urinal. Soon three new streets of terraced houses will be built on the site.
WANDSWORTH COMMON
Clearance Sale — Wandsworth Lodge, Trinity-road, Wandsworth Common.
Messrs, J. Mclachlan & sons have been favoured with instructions from C. De Selincourt, Esq., to SELL by AUCTION, on the premises as above, on Wednesday, 13th May, 1885, at 2 o'clock precisely, the BEDDING-OUT PLANTS, lawn mower, garden engine, hose and reel, hand and wheelbarrows, vase, garden seats, iron hurdling, striking frames, staging, lavatory and urinal, handsome brougham, waggonette by Perry of Bristol, a four-wheel chaise, boat, a shorthorn cow calving this month, an Alderney cow in milk a young black Berkshire sow, a magnificent peacock, a quantity of poultry, and sundry outdoor items and other effects.
May be viewed the morning of sale, and catalogues had of the Auctioneers, Clapham Common. S.W.
Wandsworth Lodge was owned for about a decade by Charles Alexandre De Selincourt, who describes himself in the 1881 Census as "Mantle and Cloak manufacturer" (the last word crossed out by the Enumerator and "Dressmaker" added).
He had many children, a number of whom were born in Wandsworth Lodge.
His daughter, Dorothy (aka "Daphne"), married A.A Milne — so Winnie the Pooh's "Christopher Robin" was his grandson. It seems likely (to me) that Eeyore was modelled on a Wandsworth Common donkey — our Common was famous for its donkeys. But that's a story for another time.
A few years after the sale, the house, gardens and had gone, and several new streets of terraced houses built in their place — Crockerton, Dalebury, and Hendham Roads.
The De Selincourts had moved here from Leigham Court Road, Streatham [date?]. The pater familias was Charles Alexandre De Selincourt, born in Paris to an English dressmaker, Adriana Arundell, and Amedee de Selincourt — purportedly an aristocrat who could not marry a commoner. The couple appear never to have married, but Charles adopted his father's surname. He became a naturalised British citizen, and, as a "Mantle and Cloak Manufacturer", employed 350 people.
I have read in descendants' rseaerches that it was his mother, Adriana, who designed the clothes that made the family's fortune. I have found her living in Wandsworth or Battersea in a number of Censuses. For example in 1861 she is living in Chesterfield Villas, St Anne's Road, and in 1881 in Heath Villa, on St James's Road (now Drive) [ yards from her son at Wandsworth Lodge].
Here is a remarkably evocative advert, in The Field, The Gentleman's Newspaper for 12 June 1875, describing the Wandsworth Lodge that so attracted the De Selincourts:
THE FIELD, THE GENTLEMAN'S NEWSPAPER.
Upper Tooting.
A very valuable Freehold Property, situate within about eight minutes' walk of Wandsworth common station (whence there are frequent trains to Victoria and London Bridge), and consisting of a comfortable Family Residence, with stabling, farmery, and other outbuildings, charming old pleasure grounds, extensive orchards and kitchen gardens, with ornamental avenues of trained and standard fruit trees and two excellent meadows; in all upwards of 16 acres.
The property possesses residential attractions seldom to be met with so near to London, and equally valuable for building purposes.
MESSRS DEBENHAM, TEWSON, and FARMER will SELL, at the Mart, on Tuesday, July 18 at Two, in One Lot (with possession (the important Freehold Property, known as WANDSWORTH LODGE, Upper Tooting, comprising a commodious family residence, containing a prospect room, commanding splendid views, fourteen bed and dressing rooms, and lumber rooms, drawing and dining rooms each about 27ft by 16ft 6in, including bow (the letter room communicating with a spacious and lofty conservatory), bath room, morning room about long including bow, large kitchen, butler's pantry, and ample offices; an excellent detached billiard room or ball room about 46ft 6in by 20ft 6in
[I]nclosed yards with stabling for eight horses, double coach house, harness and men's rooms, capital laundry, coal and coke houses, cow houses and sheds, piggeries, pigeon and poultry houses, large cart shed, barn, granary, &c.
There are three entrance lodges, a bailiff's cottage, an extensive series of glass houses, including vineries, strawberry, peach, fig, orchid, rhododendrons, and plant houses, ranges of melon, pine, and forcing pits, tool and potting houses, mushroom house, two prolific orchards, two very large walled kitchen gardens abundantly stocked with wall, standard, and espalier fruit trees, including over 160 varieties of pears, likewise a potato ground.
An adequate description of the beautiful grounds cannot be given within the limits of an advertisement. Suffice it to say, they embrace a handsome wide-spreading lawn, with fountain, two other lawns, charming shrubbery walks, an island &c; the whole entirely screened from the road by shady plantations of many years' growth, and profusely adorned with fine old ornamental timber (in which is a rookery), and splendid specimens of the choicest conifers, including cedrus deodars [Himalayan Cedar], araucaria imbricata [Monkey Puzzle Tree], cryptomeria [Cedar spp], &c; also two capital grass paddocks, skirted by plantation walk; the total quantity being about 18a 1r 13p [i.e. 18 acres 1 rood 13 perches].
The property has a frontage of nearly 1000 feet to Trinity road (the main road from Wandsworth to Tooting), and a long frontage to a road at the rear [today's Beechcroft Rd]; with these facilities for development the greater portion could be advantageously laid out for building leaving the present house and part of the grounds intact.
The soil is gravel and the neighbourhood remarkably healthy.
Particulars and cards to view of the Auctioneers, 80 Cheapside, where a series of photographs may be seen.
[Notice the last line of the advert: "where a series of photographs may be seen". Wouldn't it wonderful if we could find these photographs!]
[Note, 1.6.2022: It would be good to work out when exactly the de Selincourts moved in/out. 1875—1885? And to date the roads. I believe Brodrick and Wandle Roads were laid out first (late 1870s?) and a number of houses built. At this time the back gardens of the southern side of Wandle Road would have backed onto the edge of the De Selincourt garden. Hendham etc were built later, presumably after Wandsworth Lodge was demolished. Check maps etc.]
"a most delightful spot for the erection of a Villa. on a commanding eminence, possessing beautiful views over Lord Spencer's Park, being situate on Wandsworth Common"
Hello again, Graham
I'm sending clips of Corris's plan of Wandsworth made for Earl Spencer in 1787 and the OS One-Inch map of c.1820
Looks like "Wandsworth Lodge " was already there in 1787 ( though smaller, and probably not called that, of course).
However, it is NOT shown on Rocque 1748 - it was eiether not there at all, or still only small.)
Notice the Field was still part of the Common - it had not been enclosed
And notice both "Trinity Road" AND the parish boundary road are shown in 1787...
However, the boundary road, which may have been of great importance for a long time (since it appears to have been the main route between Upper Tooting and Battersea), has probably eased to be significant by 1800 (Milne) and c.1810 (OS) , and hence is no longer shown..
(Incidentally, the boundary road is also included on Corris's plan of Battersea, also for Spencer, of much the same time.)
I know that in the 1820s money was paid [possibly by both Spencer and Battersea Vestry) to improve the route (to Battersea Bridge), but this involved a road slightly to the east of the boundary track, joining what became Bolingbroke Grove.
Interesting, eh?
All best
Philip
