East & West Molesey

A Dictionary of Local History

Rowland G. M. Baker, 1972

 
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A manor house was the capital mansion of a manor, where the manorial lord or his steward once lived, and from which the manor was formerly managed.

Matham Manor House (EM)

No. 6 Matham Road, this house is mostly seventeenth century with later additions, although some parts are thought to date back to the fourteenth century. Internally it has a hiding hole, secret passages, and a good staircase with barley-sugar balusters.

Priory Manor House (EM)

This stood on the western side of what is now School Road. When the two manors came under the same lordship in the seventeenth century it became a farmhouse, and was so used until 1850 when the land was sold to Francis Jackson Kent (see Kent Town). The house was then divided into three tenements. In the 1870s there were complaints about the insanitary state of the house and a pond which stood opposite called "Black Pond". On 2nd August 1873 the medical officer of health reported that "13 persons slept in 2 rooms, each 13ft. x 9ft. x 6ft. The house was also perfectly unfit for habitation - there was no water supply, no water closet accommodation, and near to the house was a pond of very filthy and offensive water into which vegetable matter and refuse was thrown. The only redeeming part about the house was that it had no windows". In February 1875 he was able to report "The Old Manor Farm House has been swept away and stagnant pond filled up".

"Old Manor House" (WM)

Probably built in the late sixteenth century although much altered and extended later. For many years called "The Limes", it was not named "Old Manor House" until the 1930s. It is possible, however, that it was indeed the original manor house. It was demolished in 1963, and the sit is now occupied by "Manor Court", a housemother scheme for elderly people run by Esher Council.

"Old Manor House" (EM)

In spite of its name this was never a manor house. In the eighteenth century a number of cottages and outbuildings on this site were used as a tannery. The section of the house fronting the road, part of which has now been divided off to form a separate house called "Quillets Royal", probably dates from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The main wing, a fine example of a moderate sized Georgian house, faces away from the road, and was probably built in 1767. From 1823 to 1834 it was used as a workshop for the combined parishes of East and West Molesey.

OLD MANOR HOUSE

OLD MANOR HOUSE, Bell Road, East Molesey 1969


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