Reigate Priory Park Restoration

When our gracious parkland dating back to medieval times was being restored in 2007, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council did well to get a video made for them by local photographers.

There are some beautiful shots and rare footage of the special equipment used for digging up trees and dredging silt from the lake. An archaeologist is shown hard at work, examining the area near the old gatehouse, which was since covered up again. Several council employees are interviewed.

What a shame that Director of Services to the Community, Graham Cook, had failed to grasp the basics about Lady Henry Somerset, whose entire life from 1851-1921 is associated with Reigate Priory.

He speaks to camera: "Lady Somerset", and goes on to say "because she was a society hostess there were many photographs in magazines of the time."

To put the record straight, may I point out that she was never addressed as Lady Somerset - it was, at first, "Lady Isabel" as a girl, and then after her marriage, always "Lady Henry Somerset". It is a misrepresentation to describe her as a society hostess, and by so doing, it trivialises her life and achievements. In fact, soon after the birth of her first child and legal case for custody, severe social limitations were placed on her, caused by the embarrassment over a failed marriage. She had discovered that her husband was homosexual and had many like-minded friends. Society ostracised her for not 'turning a blind eye', so at Reigate Priory with its beautiful parkland, she was able to find peace and serenity again. As well as her heavy responsibilities as a landowner, she devoted the rest of her life to social reform, the temperance movement and Christian charity - hardly the description of a 'society hostess'!

It was the custom to rent out properties of that size - and in the case of Reigate Priory, to notables such as Lord Curzon, Mrs Ronnie Greville - THE society hostess, General Sir Ian Hamilton and Princess Wiazemsky. If you refer to Ernest Scears' history of Reigate Priory, or the visitors books, you would find that their guests included "such outstanding personalities as Edward VII, the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, the Russian Ambassador Count Benckendorff, the Hon. Mrs George Keppel [Alice] and their associates". If you refer to Audrey Ward's book "Discovering Reigate Priory - the place and the people", you would find that those associates included the Churchills, Lord Jack Fisher, Hilaire Belloc ('ex-MP') etc. etc..

Those remarkably high quality photographs of the house and grounds were taken shortly before the whole estate was coming up for auction at the Grand Sale of Reigate in 1921- a sensible course of action, don't you think? The explanation is far more practical and down to earth than the Council Director's version.

Sadly, the Lottery-funded interpretation boards in the park give no indication that there are Augustinian canons buried on the estate, and yet Lady Henry Somerset wished for that fact to be commemorated since it is hallowed ground. Even more ironic is that the pet dog graves get an interpretation board of their own!

Who is kidding whom about "introducing" tennis courts? Here at Reigate Priory, we had "Real Tennis", as at Hampton Court and King Henry VIII. For the 2007 renovations, the existing tennis courts were actually dug up and new ones constructed elsewhere in the park - that is all. A skate park? In Lady Henry Somerset's day there was a 9-hole golf course and top quality horses to admire on the estate. The famous stables, frequented by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, have been left for the vandals. Even the paddock fences, abandoned and ignored, are now a disgrace.

There is another great shame, though. Reigate and Banstead Borough Council failed to take the opportunity to get the magnificent 18th Century Park Lane wrought iron gates restored. They date back to about 1720 and would have stood to welcome all the rich and famous for many generations of society hostesses! The gates and railings in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea were made by the same smith and they are still there to be admired for their excellence, in tip-top condition.

In contrast, the even larger, and of national importance, Reigate Park Lane gates and railings are sitting forlornly, in a parlous state. They are now thoroughly rusted from being left in the undergrowth from WW2 until 1993. Even a box of bits of original ironwork has gone missing, it seems. Where are they located? Well, for 17 years they have been in a Council depot right beside the ratepayers' winter road salt supplies.

It's basic science that salt is corrosive to ironwork.

Towards the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century, Lady Henry Somerset chose the Park Lane Gates and Railings as the main entrance to her beloved Priory - in time for her son's 21st and his wedding. What a wonderful feat of engineering excellence she was honouring, and it was right there that she chose to build her dower house, Makepeace.

So Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, well done on having a lovely video made as a record of the restoration project, but with £6.5 million to play with, it also shows that the history homework hadn't been done properly by a key Council officer. For how long will we ratepayers wait for the beautiful gates and stables to be restored?

Royalty in Reigate

If you go to an event in the Holbein Hall at Reigate Priory you will see an array of large colour photographs of HRH Prince Edward when he visited the Grade 1 historic building and Grade 2 park on 9th July 2008.

He was presented with a copy of Mum's book, "Discovering Reigate Priory - the place and the people" and he even mentioned it in the letter of thanks from Bagshot Park.

In the book there are many references to his family of course. One of the photographs is of his sister, Princess Anne who visited on June 28, 1980 for a rally of St John Ambulance Cadets.

Their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, used to visit the stables at Reigate Priory fairly regularly, just 21 miles from London. I can remember from my childhood in the 1960s, seeing her black limousine sweeping round from Croydon Road into Church Street, and she waved. She was on her way to see her horses in the Priory stables in Park Lane, where they were trained by Jack O'Donoghue. He had trained many horses owned by her. His obituary in the Independent, 1998, started with"As well as being the oldest licensed trainer in Britain until his retirement in 1996, Jack O'Donohue's other distinction during a career spanning half a century was to send out the 1951 Grand National winner Nickel Coin.

I remember the stables and paddocks were always so picturesque, set in the lovely landscape of a gentleman's country estate, now a municipal park. What a shame that they have been the target of arsonists three times this year and still nothing has been done to conserve them or put them to good use as amenities, as originally intended. Peter Beatty had stated as such in his letter published in the Times during WW2.

I wonder if the Queen Mother and our reigning monarch Elizabeth II knew that Reigate is the almer mater of their Honorary Surgeon, Philip H Mitchiner, and also the hometown of Her Majesty's Honorary Gynaecologist, who safely delivered Prince Charles sixty years ago.


In previous generations, owners of Reigate Priory have also had many royal links. Earl Beatty was a national hero and legend in his time - Admiral Sir David. As owner from 1921 onwards of Reigate Priory, perhaps his finest hour was on the deck of his Grand Fleet flagship, HMS Queen Elizabeth. In 1948 it was sold for scrap.

Reigate Priory was even used as a secret refuge for the royal princes (later Edward VIII and George VI) when there was a big scare about a Sinn Feinn plot to murder some members of the Royal Family and the government. They were guarded by the local police who were 'gone for some time until the scare was over'. Churchill was there at the same time, knowing the geography and acting with political discretion and secrecy.

Edward VII, two generations earlier, was a regular house guest along with the Marlborough House set. There is a huge photograph taken May 20th 1905, along with signatures in the visitor's book of Edward R, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (a.k.a. 'the Old Trout'), Maud Warrender, Arthur Balfour, the Cadogans, Ernest Cassel, Violet Savile and her husband, Muriel Wilson, William McEwan and Alice Keppel - "the King's special friend". Years ago when I taught at Reigate Priory School, one of my classrooms was Edward VII's bedroom - very grand, with a fabulous view south towards the parkland, the ha ha, the peaceful sunken garden and fountain. There are connecting doors between the rooms of course.

There have doubtless been other right royal visits. In another book stored in a Toronto university library there is a comment that 'we must not omit to mention' that the future James II resided there. We don't yet have the definitive proof of him actually residing there except that there are firm references that he was co-owner for some time.

Then of course we have the geological links with royal palaces. Reigate stone has always been highly prized and used in the building of Westminster Abbey, Westminster Palace, Windsor Castle, Rochester Castle, Hampton Court's Great Hall, Nonsuch Palace, Hadleigh Castle and St. Paul's Cathedral.

There was also Reigate Castle! Its memory survives in legend and history books - on Reigate Grammar School's badge and the Borough's Coat of Arms.

How far back are the right royal links with Reigate? Well, the Domesday Book of 1086 states that "The King holds Churchefelle in demesne" and "Edith the Queen held it". Edith was the widow of Edward the Confessor. It is lovely to read in Hooper's book of Reigate: Its Story Through The Ages, that William the Conqueror respected her title and allowed her to retain possession of this and her other manors during her life.

It's a shame about the stables being burnt down in 2008 though.

Did those vandals ever learn anything about history or respect? Did they ever apologise? Perhaps nothing will ever be done about it until that rather special jigsaw piece of our royal heritage is eventually bulldozed over and forgotten for evermore. Progress, huh.