Overview

This two-hour walk focuses on the history of Wanstead House, a magnificent Palladian mansion torn down in the 1820s. En route from Wanstead Underground Station to the Temple we will see surviving features from its estate, including tranquil, sylvan Wanstead Park which once formed part of the grand gardens surrounding the house. Over two centuries the garden features have reverted to a more natural forest state but some remain to be found on this walk.

History

The estate’s rich and varied history includes royal connections in Tudor and Stuart times and the tragic story of the last heiress Catherine Tylney-Long, who married a Regency rake who dissipated her fortune. Henry VII first enclosed the park, which was held by the Heron family. Giles Heron forfeited the estate (and his life) when he refused to recognise Henry VIII’s supremacy and over the next century the estate was owned by a succession of royal favourites. On the highest ground, Sir Richard Rich built a Tudor house which was extended by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester who entertained Queen Elizabeth I there for a week. It was later owned by another of her favourites, the Earl of Essex and during James I‘s time by the Duke of Buckingham.

After the Restoration it left royal hands and was bought in 1673 by Sir Josiah Child, Governor of the East India Company. His son Richard bought himself a title and built himself a Whig power house from 1715, the first large Neo-Palladian house in the country, designed by Colen Campbell. It was enormously influential. The house was pulled down after the last heiress Catherine Tylney-Long made the wrong choice of husband: William Wellesley-Pole, nephew of the Duke of Wellington, who managed to nearly bankrupt her within a decade. Part of the grounds was later purchased by the City of London to form today’s Wanstead Park.

Highlights

• Wanstead Underground station - designed by Charles Holden
• The George, Wanstead – an Edwardian replacement of an old coaching inn
• George Green - gnarled sweet chestnut trees dating from 1720s
• St Mary’s churchyard – Grade I listed church by Thomas Hardwick
• Wanstead Golf Club – the former stables of Wanstead House
• Wanstead Park – surviving garden features, including the Grotto and the Temple

The Temple

The Temple was built in the early 1760s and housed the estate’s groundsmen. After the City of London purchased and opened the park in 1882, two families of Forest Keepers lived here until 1960. It was extensively repaired in the 1990s and now houses a museum and visitor centre (open once a month) with displays about the history of Wanstead House and Park.