Friends of Wandsworth Common — Heritage Talk · 3 December 2024
Lost Houses and Gardens of Wandsworth Common
Here we are. This is the Lost Houses and Gardens of Wandsworth Common — a research project we started at the beginning of last year. This is the second talk we've given; we had one previously on the five houses of Balling Brook Grove, and tonight we're talking about the Burntwood houses.
Let's orientate ourselves. This is a 1640 map, and this area here is Burntwood — you can probably just make it out. The name probably has something to do with charcoal burning, though we're not certain. This is the area where the houses we're talking about tonight will eventually be built. Nightingale Lane is here; Garrett Green, which is still there, is at the bottom; and this is the corner we're going to be talking about.
Two hundred years later, in 1840, this is the tithe map of the time. Wandsworth town centre is up at the top; Garrett Lane runs down parallel with the River Wandle; then we get to Burntwood Lane here, with Trinity Road running up there — and here is where the Burntwood houses are.
You have three speakers tonight. Louise is going to talk about Burntwood House, the most northerly of the group. Then Henrietta will talk about Burntwood Lodge and Collamore House, right next door to it. I will talk about Burntwood Grange. And to round it all off, Henrietta will return to talk about the gardens and grounds of all three houses.
Some of you may remember that I gave a talk on Burntwood House when we did our introductory Lost Houses talk this time last year. I haven't added a great deal to what I'd researched up until then — but you've probably forgotten it all anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
Burntwood House, as Steven said, is the most northerly of the group. Its position is where the vicarage now stands on Lyford Road, on the corner of Loxley and Lyford. It had quite extensive grounds stretching right down along the length of Loxley Road and also a great stretch up to Trinity Road along what became Raleigh Road — all of that was included in the grounds.
It was probably the oldest of the Burntwood houses. On a map of 1787 there is a cluster of buildings on the site, so there was probably a cottage and outbuildings there even that long ago. The 1800 map confirms its location.
The first notable resident and owner was a man called Pierce Walsh Porter. He was of Irish descent and the sole surviving descendant of one John Porter, whose family had owned the All Farthing estate for at least a couple of hundred years. John Porter died without an heir, and Pierce Walsh inherited through his mother and adopted the surname Porter, tacking it onto his own name.
He married a woman called Harriet Scou and they became quite a celebrity couple in late Georgian London. He was a remarkable man: a playwright, a musician, a dramatist, an art dealer, and architectural advisor to the Prince of Wales — the future Prince Regent. He moved in very aristocratic circles, holding lavish parties, and appears to have developed what was then Burntwood Cottage into a fashionable cottage ornée, using it as a weekend retreat. He also owned a house in Mayfair.
Sadly he died prematurely, still a young man, in 1809, and is buried in Bath Abbey. There's very little to show for his busy life — I went to have a look, and there's just a very worn memorial. But he was a fascinating figure, and he started off the Royal Art Collection that the royal family still owns today, helping the Prince Regent begin assembling artworks in the late 18th century.
We don't have a picture of Burntwood Cottage, so I can't show you exactly what it looked like. But the cottage ornée style was fashionable in the late 18th century — think of Marie Antoinette playing at farms. It typically meant a decorated, rustic house, often with a thatched roof, a veranda, and climbing plants, used as a summer retreat by its owners.
Pierce Walsh Porter also bought Craven Cottage overlooking the river in Fulham — you may have heard of it, as it's now the football ground. The original Craven Cottage burnt down long ago, but Porter apparently created an extraordinarily theatrical interior there and used it for entertaining his circle, including the Prince of Wales.
Porter introduced to Burntwood Cottage a woman called Albinia Hobart, the Dowager Countess of Buckinghamshire — quite glamorous in her youth. They probably knew one another through the same social circles. She and her husband were very political: the Earl of Buckinghamshire was a Whig MP, associated with Charles James Fox, and they were great gamblers, holding lavish and technically illegal gambling parties attended by figures such as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
After Porter's death, Albinia took up occupancy of Burntwood Cottage — possibly even before his death. She appeared in many political cartoons of the time, including one showing William Pitt the Younger confronting her. The cartoons invariably satirised her enormous size; she had had many children and clearly enjoyed good living.
Pierce Walsh Porter left the estate to his sole surviving son, also named Pierce Walsh Porter, but in 1812 the younger Porter sold it to someone called Richard Clark, who sublet the house — by then referred to in the title deeds as Albinia Cottage — to Albinia Hobart. I suspect she may already have been living there under a previous lease. The 1813 sales notice describes it as:
"Singularly romantic, embosomed in a plantation of forest trees and shrubs of the choicest kinds, commanding views in every direction, both orient and picturesque."
At that point it was in the tenure of Albinia, Countess Dowager of Buckinghamshire, on a 20-year lease. We don't know why she gave up her lease, but she was 76 at this point and died three years later, so her health may have made using the property impractical.
In May 1814, Richard Clark sold the property to Thomas Gaston — we know very little about him. By 1826 the lease was being advertised for sale again, now referring to a "sheet of water" — presumably the lake — and again described as a cottage ornée, mentioning that it was "formerly the retreat of Walsh Porter." The listing speaks of 35 acres with coach house and stabling, "plentifully supplied with water."
On the 1838 map you can see the lake — a long, serpentine shape in the grounds. It's quite a substantial property.
Ownership changed a number of times during the following decades. We do know of several actual residents from census records and tithe maps: a banker with five servants, a surgeon, and Edward Herring described as a druggist — presumably someone who sold medicines — with a household of six servants.
By 1868 the Ordnance Survey map shows it clearly referred to as Burntwood House, with what a large property it is, all its outbuildings, the lake, and the driveway stretching right up to Trinity Road.
The other major resident we know of is Johnson Charles de Salis. By 1856 he was a sitting tenant who had apparently purchased the entire Burntwood Lodge estate. He was already living there by then, having been found on the 1851 census in Islington — a widower with a 16-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter — so he presumably moved in sometime between 1851 and 1856.
He made his fortune from selling "pulmonic wafers," offering:
"Perfect freedom from coughs in 10 minutes after use, and a rapid cure for asthma and consumption,"
available in boxes ranging from a shilling to 11 shillings. He had offices in the City as agent for the sale of this remedy. He remained at Burntwood House until his death there in 1886, aged 76.
The property was then ordered for sale by the Chancery Division, and his executors sold the estate to Magdalen College in 1887. There appear to have been no other residents of Burntwood House after that point. A rather sad advertisement appeared in 1891 for the sale of building materials — bricks, sashes, mantelpieces, oak banisters and staircases — confirming the house had been demolished. By September 1892 a new vicarage had been completed on the site — the handsome Victorian building you can see there to this day — and Raleigh Road had been laid out.
I'm going to show you this image first, as it is the first and only image we have of Burntwood Lodge, so you can see how it appeared. We'll return to it, as it's so precious. As for Collamore, there is virtually nothing — though the little I have found suggests it would have been very similar to Burntwood Lodge.
The map shows what the landscape was like when these houses were built — broadly agricultural, with rough land on the Common and more developed market gardens further towards the river.
By 1812, Burntwood Lodge had been built, and Richard Clark arrived as our first resident. He doesn't last long — he goes bankrupt within a year. He was a grocer, and he acquired the lease from Pierce Walsh Porter in 1812. His property affairs are slightly obscure, as he leaves Burntwood Lodge and sells his lease of Burntwood Cottage (as it was then known) to the Dowager Countess, who renames it Albinia Cottage.
How do we know when the Lodge was built? A big shout-out to the National Library of Scotland, who established that this particular map was surveyed between 1804 and 1812 — so we know Burntwood Lodge, and probably Collamore, were built by then.
After Clark's sudden departure, we have a man with the splendid name of Augustus Pieschell, who was German. He was there between 1813 and 1823. We know very little about him except that he left a legacy for the establishment of an asylum in his native city of Magdeburg for the education of poor boys and girls. He also owned a sizeable estate near Crowne.
After his death in 1822 there was a sale of Burntwood Lodge in 1823, which described "beautiful views of Lord Spencer's Park and the rich surrounding countryside," and referenced the contents of the house, which were grand and luxurious, including — and I must mention this — a sarcophagus cellarette. I looked it up: it's something that looks like a sarcophagus and is used for storing wine. Quite wonderful.
On the 1823 tax list we see another flamboyantly named man — Heronimus Bohm — shown as the occupier, with Pierce Walsh Porter still listed as the owner. We know very little about him, but his family are listed there until about 1840.
This connects conveniently to Sophia Sheppard's holdings. Sophia is the owner on the 1840 map, having inherited these holdings after her husband's death in 1814 — her husband having been a wealthy fellow of Magdalen College.
We then come to two really colourful characters at Burntwood Lodge: Isaac Bean Senior and Isaac Bean Junior, residents between 1841 and 1851. They seem to have moved between Burntwood Lodge, Garrett Farm, and Brixton during this ten-year period. The 1841 census shows Isaac Bean at Burntwood Lodge, described as a hop factor, with three family members and three servants. He is on the Electoral Register of 1842. But then Isaac Bean wanders around Southwest London for about ten years: appearing on the 1847 Brixton electoral roll, then the 1851 Brixton census, then back on the Wandsworth electoral roll for 1851, then Brixton again in 1852. His nephew, also Isaac, appears on the 1851 census as head of family at Garrett Farm on Burntwood Lane, described as a farmer.
This is probably the last record of a Bean living in a local property — but fast forward to 1894 and they appear in the dock for deception, bankruptcy, and burning books. One George Wy testified:
"I burnt the books in the warehouse yard; they were business books connected with Isaac Bean's senior business. I did not look inside any of the books and cannot tell what they were. I had been in the prison service since 1872 — 21 years — and this was the first occasion I had ever destroyed books."
Bean was found guilty and sentenced to four months' hard labour.
Following on from the colourful Beans, we have a much more respectable individual: Richard Townes, Vicar of All Saints Church, Wandsworth. We think he was there by 1851, as his renowned brother — a barrister at Lincoln's Inn — died in the house in 1850. In 1851 he had a wife, daughter and three servants, and he died in 1855, leaving an estate of less than £6,000.
In the same year Edward Herring is also listed at Burntwood Lodge on the City of London electoral roll as a Skinner. Other trades listed for residents of both Burntwood Lodge and Collamore include silk throwers, shipwrights, wool brokers and silk mercers.
The Griwood family followed at the Lodge. They were professional brokers — both father and son in the same trade — with connections across both Burntwood Grange and Burntwood Lodge. Both Henry Senior and Junior eventually moved to and died at Chesham Place in Belgravia.
A small quirky anecdote: on the marriage of Henry Junior to Anne Phillips in 1850, the bride is referred to in the settlement documents as "an infant of 18 years," with a settlement of £300,000 in today's money. Their descendants were prominent in the media business. Harmon Griwood in the mid-20th century was a broadcaster on the Money Programme, and Dan Griwood, a publisher, fought off a takeover attempt by Robert Maxwell — described in his obituary as being like "an Old Testament patriarch" who "took his sling and launched a defence that saw off that dreadful giant."
Moving to 1861: Richard Dutton, a wool merchant, was there from 1858, with the last record dated 1862. The census shows seven family members across three generations, four servants, with his son also a wool broker.
It's not clear when he left, but the house was up for sale in 1867. The sales brochure is interesting: it emphasises the location and the newly created rail connections, noting the houses were "7 miles and 30 minutes from the Metropolis of London." The particulars describe nine bedrooms, a vast drawing room communicating with the conservatory, a smoking room adjoining the dining room, and a morning room. The contents include French bedsteads, goose feather beds, a Broadwood grand piano, Brussels and Turkey carpets, and a cellar of about 130 dozen bottles of wine.
By 1871 the residents were considerably more significant in terms of wealth. The census shows Joseph Somes as a ship owner, aged 52, with wife, sister, two nieces and six servants — with a hierarchy ranging from footman to nurse to cook and various maids.
In the 1830s, Joseph Somes's uncle — also Joseph Somes — was a ship owner who dramatically expanded his fleet, taking advantage of the break-up of the East India Company fleet. His official trade title was "Indian husband." He sailed to the East Indies, Australasia and the South Seas for whaling. By 1842 he was reported to be the largest private ship owner in the world, and by 1844 became a Conservative MP. On entering Parliament he had to transfer ownership of his ships to his nephew to avoid a conflict of interest.
Joseph Somes Junior was 25 when he received this legacy — his uncle died six months after becoming an MP, leaving an estate worth approximately £45 million in today's money. He also became a Conservative MP, for Kingston upon Hull, in 1859. He died in 1871, leaving the house and furniture to his wife, who was still there in 1878.
John W. Thorne and family were the longest residents at Burntwood Lodge, arriving in 1880. They came from a remarkable house called Turret House, previously owned by the Ashmolean Museum and the Tradescants — the most celebrated plant hunters and gardeners of the 17th century.
The ten-yearly census details from 1881 to 1911 show the family size drop from eight to four, while the number of servants remained the same, some remaining in service with the same family for 20 years.
He was a brewer, with a brewery in Lambeth — but the family were also notably philanthropic. He sponsored an offshoot of St George's School and built cottages and a meeting hall for his workers. In 1887 he was Lambeth Mission Treasurer, noting:
"The work is carried on in the poorest parts of Lambeth, a neighbourhood which needs to be seen to be thoroughly understood."
J.W. Thorne died at Bolingbroke Hospital, where his family had been associated with the management. The philanthropy continued: his son J.W. Thorne Junior left a vast legacy to hospitals, Bible groups and mission societies in 1941.
By 1911 the house was up for sale — the valuation record folder for 1910 shows Holloway Brothers as potential developers, who were themselves residents at Burntwood Grange at the time. The 1911 sales particulars note the properties are "ripe for immediate development." They describe a comfortable library, a pretty oval-shaped boudoir, an outdoor smoking room, electric lights installed, gas laid on, speaking tubes fitted — and a cowshed for two cows.
The only surviving architectural element of all three houses is Collamore's garden wall, which still runs along Sandgate Lane by the bowling green. If anyone wants to see something that's still live and kicking, that's where to go.
I shall be as rapid as I can without sacrificing clarity.
On the earlier Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in the early years of the 19th century, there is no Burntwood Grange — it's the last of these three houses to be built. But by the tithe map of 1840, it has appeared.
Sophia Sheppard, the freeholder who owned all the land running down from the Common to Garrett Lane, leased a plot in 1831 to someone called Edward I'Anson, on which he built a house with stables and a lodge, laid out the grounds at a cost of at least £2,000, and called his new house Burntwood Grange. A man called John Buckler, interestingly associated with Magdalen College, made sketches of the house in 1835, showing a pretty building in the cottage ornée style — by the 1830s rather old-fashioned perhaps, but it had oriel windows, decorative chimneys and ornamental bargeboards, and a drive curving around a shrubbery with some ornamental cows in the foreground.
The tithe map of 1840 shows four parcels of land all owned by Sophia Sheppard and occupied by Edward I'Anson: the main house with its stables and other buildings, meadowland, and at the bottom a driveway running down to Burntwood Lane with a small lodge — the gardener invariably lived there.
Edward I'Anson Senior and his son Edward I'Anson Junior were both architects. The 1841 census shows five servants and the gardener John Blay living in the lodge. I'Anson Senior sold Burntwood Grange in 1846 and moved to Clapham Common West Side.
Edward I'Anson Junior was a rather more successful architect. He became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and indeed its President in 1886. He is known particularly for buildings in the Clapham area, including Clapham Common Station and the Hibbert's Arms — which some of you may recognise on the Wandsworth Road.
Edward I'Anson sold Burntwood Grange to Harmon Griwood, a share jobber — that is, a stockbroker — whom we heard about in connection with Burntwood Lodge. He now had nine servants for a household of only four people. Down in the lodge, the gardener continued.
By the late 1850s Griwood moved on — people don't really hang around very long in these places, interestingly, unless you're a gardener. He moved near Chipping Norton, became Deputy Lieutenant for Oxford and Gloucester, and High Sheriff for Worcester. When he died in 1871 his estate was worth just under £200,000 — nearly £20 million today.
His descendants included another Harmon Griwood who founded the BBC Third Programme; Freddie Griwood, the first chairman of Any Questions; and Dan Griwood, a publisher who founded Kingfisher Books, specialising in children's books, and was chairman of the French publishing group Larousse.
During his time at Burntwood Grange, Griwood enlarged and remodelled the house, adding a conservatory and a dairy. These are featured in Bowen's Pictorial Handbook of 1854, which is lavishly complimentary, saying of the conservatory:
"Its merits are that it unites and harmonises well with the house, of which it forms the constituent part, and not a mere adjunct — at a period when buildings of this kind are just tacked onto a house at any point where they may be wanted, a conservatory like this is a pleasant and worthy deviation from ordinary practice."
Moving to 1861, we have William Featherstone, a dentist. I know absolutely nothing about William Featherstone, but I do know that his son-in-law Charles Major was a pigeon fancier. The Morning Chronicle of February 1859 reports that the National Columbarian Club met at Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street, where about 280 birds were displayed, including "noble specimens of pouters, trumpeters, carriers and dragons — very fine — from C.M. Major Esquire of Burntwood Grange." I thought it was rather wonderful.
In 1867 the house was sold, and its furniture and effects went to auction, including "a pair of rich dark brown carriage horses, grand goers; a clever bay hunter; three handsome ponies; and two milch cows and calves" — nice to think the dairy was being put to good use. Also up for sale was the wine cellar: 2,880 bottles of wine, worth over £400,000 at present-day values.
The 1869 map shows the grounds in some detail: the conservatory as an integral part of the design, a summerhouse, two fountains, and the driveway down to Burntwood Lane with the lodge.
Between 1862 and 1881 there was a whole succession of different occupiers. By 1881 T.C. Elliott had handed on to William Carr, a stockbroker — we're down to six servants now, but still with stabling, a coachman, a gate lodge and a second lodge. By 1893 William Carr had moved to Essex and the house was put up for sale at "the low upset price of £3,000, the owner having just purchased an estate in the country." Described as "a country house close to town in excellent order," it offered 15 bed and dressing rooms, a billiard room, a library, and one bathroom. Stabling for five horses and a lawn tennis court.
By 1911 Ellison Road had been built, cutting across some of the Grange's land — and rather ironically, the person then living at Burntwood Grange was Henry Holloway, the very developer who was building those houses and streets. He was there from 1902.
Henry Holloway was one of the original brothers who formed Holloway Brothers Building Company in 1882. They were responsible for most of the early 20th-century housing development on the south-west area of the Common, including 2,000 houses on the Magdalen Park estate. They built Wandsworth and Chelsea Bridges, Lavender Hill Library, and the Battersea public baths, as well as nationally significant commissions including the Old Bailey, the Trafalgar Square fountains, and Chatham Naval Barracks. Henry was chairman of the company from 1902 until his death in 1923, and was knighted in 1917 for his work as director of government housing construction during the war.
One of Henry's six sons, Bernard — known in the family as "Babe" — was a noted athlete who represented England at lacrosse and Sussex at cricket. He was killed in action in France at the Battle of Loos in 1915, and is remembered on the memorial rood screen in St Mary Magdalene Church.
By 1921 Henry Holloway had moved out — to Wimbledon, I think, in 1919 — and a woman called Mary Sers was living there. It was quite an international household: she was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), with a Dutch housekeeper and a French cook. In 1932 she married the fifth Earl of Enniskillen and moved to Ireland. Her daughter Sonia later married the sixth Earl — the fifth Earl's nephew. Sonia became a well-known anthropologist and worked in later years with Louis and Mary Leakey in Kenya.
George Gray, the gardener, is worth a special mention. He lived in the lodge from 1890 to 1923, making him the longest-serving resident on the estate.
Through the 1920s and 30s the house's story becomes harder to track. For two years the Balham and Tooting Junior Imperial League had a football ground there. According to Kelly's Directory, it was a girls' school for ten years. There was a grass court tennis club with the Grange as the secretary's address. And from 1935 to 1940, one Arthur Ashton is listed in Kelly's as being there.
The last known photograph, from the late 1930s, shows the back of the house with a rather overgrown garden. By 1947 the Grange is gone. Burntwood Grange Road and Collamore Avenue mark where they once stood.
Going back to the map, I want to say a few things about the grounds and gardens of these houses.
At the time these houses were built, Capability Brown and Humphry Repton were the great landscape architects, and while neither was involved with any of these local properties, their influence is very visible here. The first notable feature is that you never had a drive going straight to the front door — you always had an approach road from the left or right, so that the house was slowly revealed to you as you arrived.
Looking at the map in detail, you can see the serpentine lake — a very classic detail of the era. If you stood at one end, you couldn't see the other end, which was a very deliberate design feature. More generally, you can see the Capability Brown tendency of sweeping gravel paths, broad plantings and large lawned areas.
This document describes: detached stabling for four horses, harness room, coach house with rooms over for the coachmen, a greenhouse, hot and forcing houses for melon and cucumber, a fern house and fernery, and "delightful pleasure grounds." The general emphasis was on opulence and the ability to provide your own produce from the estate.
Capability Brown's influence was so deep and widespread that Walpole said of him:
"We have discovered the point of perfection; we have given the true model of gardening to the world."
Humphry Repton followed on from Brown and introduced flower and shrub gardens with parterres, inspired by France. You may recall on the encroachments map those clearly rectilinear plots — these would very likely have been parterres, kitchen garden areas, walled gardens and fruit garden areas. The layout of outbuildings also showed considerable thought: stables and carriages could conveniently circle the building, drop residents at the front door, and return.
Looking at the images of Burntwood Lodge, what they suggest is that these gardens had enormous quantities of specimen trees. One of the most important marks of status was having imported trees from exotic places. Going back to the Tradescants, who owned Turret House — the plant hunters of the 17th century — if you had a property of this size, that was exactly what you would do. Cedar of Lebanon was the absolute ultimate in prestige planting.
The 1826 sales notice for Burntwood Cottage describes the scenery as including "Lord Spencer's Park, the Surrey Hills, Epsom Downs, surrounded by its own ornamental grounds."
At Burntwood Grange there are advertisements for loose boxes for hunters — the more local Royal Parks had long since disallowed hunting, while it was still permitted in the Surrey Hills and North Downs of Kent. Carriage horses were ubiquitous, but riding horses are also mentioned, prompting the question of whether residents took gentle hacks on the Common opposite, went to Clapham Common or the newly created Battersea Park, or rode further afield to Wimbledon and Richmond.
These properties were conveniently located between two very prominent plant nurseries. Rollinson's Nursery was just south of Wandsworth Common, and between 1790 and 1880 it was large and highly reputable — it has recently received a blue plaque. Neil's Nursery overlapped with Rollinson's for a few years; in the 1870s Neil's had approximately 70 acres in total, dispatching approximately 236,000 plants in a year.
Looking at the wider area of Battersea, we see it producing asparagus and lavender, while Wandsworth still had acres of cornfields, cabbage grounds and young tree plantations. References are also made to tomato houses, vineries and extensive greenhouses.
As a closing point, William Wilberforce was a local resident, and in 1807 he described the area to a correspondent as "a poor mimicry of the real live country." This reflects an opinion that while these estates were impressive, they were often viewed as inferior to the grander, more sophisticated properties north of the river, and not as authentic as the truly large rural country estates.
Why haven't you found anything about Collamore?
We're assuming it was there by 1812, and we have documents for three families — but with big gaps in between, and the information on those three families is not desperately insightful. We've recently had contact with Magdalen College archives, who have been incredibly helpful and are currently reordering their files. In the new year we may go up and see what they have — Collamore may well yield more information then.
Why did the acreage of these properties diminish over time?
For Burntwood Grange, the acreage did reduce when Ellison Road was built, but otherwise the acreage of these estates remained more or less constant. They were all demolished in one go, and the network of streets was then built. The writing was really on the wall from the 1880s onwards. Interestingly, the ownership by Sophia Sheppard and then Magdalen College on the west side actually helped protect that area from being too urbanised compared with the Bolingbroke Grove side, which was built up from the 1860s and is much more urban. Even now, there are still sports grounds going down towards Springfield Park — it's a lot less urban, really.
Why was Magdalen College involved in this area?
Sophia Sheppard was married to a fellow of Magdalen College, and her brother — whose name is commemorated in Routh Road — was President of Magdalen for a while. She was very much part of the Magdalen College set. Quite when or why she or her husband bought the estate off Porter we don't yet know in detail — we're hoping the archives will tell us — but it made sense that when she died she left all that land as a legacy to the college.
Why were these properties so often sold on leases rather than freehold?
I think Sophia Sheppard was a canny woman. She bought what she could off Porter initially and then added to it over the years. She didn't want to relinquish the freehold. It would be interesting to look at that aspect in more depth.
Thank you again to Louise and Henrietta — we know what a huge amount of research this is, and how long you spend poring over records, computers and archives. We are all really grateful for your work. There is more to come next year, so keep an eye open for further Lost Houses evenings. We hope eventually to commit something to print — we haven't quite decided what form it will take, but there will be some kind of publication. Thank you all very much for coming and staying the course, and we wish you all a very merry Christmas.