This post is written at the request of some of the many people whose ancestors lived and worked as staff at Temple House near Marlow. They could find much information about the wealthy Williams family who built the riverside mansion but not much about the now demolished house itself. So as promised here is the tale of another of the vanished homes of the area...
An edifice of opulence..and taste?
I think Temple House (or Temple Hall as it was occasionally known in it's early days) was a building that very much divided the opinions of those that viewed it. It was placed in a undoubtedly beautiful position on the riverside at Temple but did the house add or detract to the charms of the area? It was a massive building, somewhat a mash of styles in the end and one with a very lavish interior. Some found it's main frontage with Doric portico impressive in scale, others found it OTT. It is presumed to have been built shortly after the Welsh copper baron Thomas Williams purchased the adjacent Temple Mills in 1788. William Combe in his 1796 history of the principal rivers of the kingdom described Temple Hall as newly built. A few years later a book of engravings of riverside property by William and George Cooke described Temple as ".. such an edifice as opulence assisted by taste may be expected to erect." It's front elevation was considered "very elegant and pleasing". They added that "the interior answers in taste and arrangement to the exterior portion". The most significant and undoubtedly personal feature of the house was the distinctive copper roof, a landmark sight for many.
So how big was Temple House? Once the west wing was built (see below) it could offer a choice of 10 reception rooms, 22 bed and dressing rooms, 23 staff bedrooms and 5 bathrooms (many of the bedrooms had fitted baths in addition) plus cellars, kitchens, servants hall etc. Oh and a large organ, musician gallery and 8 staircases.
Uncertainty for staff
The Williams family retained a house in Wales as well as London (South Audley Street) and so were naturally not always to be found at home at Temple. It was said in the 1840s that the family typically spent about 3 months of the year at Temple, mainly during the "parliamentary season" when they also stayed at South Audley Street. A few members of staff travelled with the family between homes, including at times the butler.
It does not seem the house was left long enough to be shut up, with the inevitable laying off of all but skeleton staff that entailed. However when Thomas Peers Williams died in 1875*, followed by his wife two months later, the local papers declared the shock news that all of the families Marlow property was to be sold. The tenants were to be given the option of taking a long lease. As it turned out the Williams retained considerable local property but it was a start of a period of rumours that the Williams were going to leave Temple for good.
In 1878 it was reported that the house was to be broken up and that the horses would be sold and the servants discharged. This seems to be because the family were expected to be abroad for a time. Regardless Temple House was not sold then, and in fact the Williams invested considerably in improving it. In the late 1870s a series of renovations and additions were made to the house. The Bucks Advertiser considered that there were "few country seats more attractive or more rich in rural beauty" than Temple House after 5 years of this work. The park had also been added to, and another lodge put up. Altogether the estate including the home farm was over 400 acres in extent. However various parts of it were let out to farmers at different times and another portion would become Temple golf course in 1909. That still left large gardens and parklands in hand.
The Williams family were very keen on sailing and took some long voyages eg to the Canary Islands on The Enchantress for 3 months in 1880 and an even longer tour of the Mediterranean in 1883. But the staff remained, busy with keeping a large property running in their absence.
Vote for me..or else
Successive members of the Williams family served as Marlow's M.P. Elections here were always heated and contentious affairs. All parties were accused of some shocking abuses of their power from evicting tenants that didn't vote for them to paying the rent of those that did. Bribes of all kinds were alleged to be on the table. The majority of these rumours are hard to substantiate. However most elections resulted in an investigation of some contested votes at least. In 1842 the Williams butler Michael Redmond had his vote (for Williams naturally) thrown out. He qualified to vote based on occupying a property at Bisham of sufficient value but it was decided that he didn't really live there. They pointed out that Michael was - as virtually all butlers were - a live in servant with his own bedroom within Temple House. He also travelled with his employer and was only at Temple a few months a year so he hardly had a need to rent a residential property elsewhere. Michael said he mainly wanted the saw yard that went with the premises as he occasionally made fishing rods and snuff boxes in his leisure hours and so needed somewhere to store bundles of wood. The election inquiry did not believe our wood turning butler as the majority of tools etc in the saw yard belonged to the Williams and were used for estate work.
Temple Ale
There's no doubt a house the size of Temple took a lot of time to run properly, even when the family were not in residence. It's good to know that the hardworking servants had some "high days" to look forward to. The most consistently celebrated was the Christmas ball and supper (usually held in fact just after the new year). At this the Williams themselves were reported to dance with their domestics although I suspect the lowest scullery maid was a little less likely to get a turn than the upper staff such as the housekeeper or butler. These were all night affairs - starting at 8pm and ending at 5-6am. They may have hired additional temporary staff for this as was sometimes the case at other grand houses as of course the every day work of the house still had to go on the morning after. A regular feature of these grand events was the serving of "Temple Ale", the estates home brew. Local tradespeople who provided goods for the estate were usually invited too.
A place for royalty
One of rumoured reasons that Temple House was extended and improved in the 1870s was it was to be rendered fit for royalty. They Prince and Princess of Wales certainly made numerous visits there, and were well known to be friends of the Williams family. The visits were supposed to be personal ones but if anyone hoped to keep them low key and secret, they were not successful. It would seem a little hint or two always made it known to the community at Marlow that a regal visit was planned. For example when a band was engaged to play on Temple lawn in 1877, a crowd of locals in little boats was ready in position on the river to listen to the so called private performance. Sometimes the royals arrived by train at Marlow prior to proceeding to Temple. On those occasions the Marlow rifle volunteers greeted them with a guard of honour in the station yard, and the flags and streamers were put up in the High Street and Causeway. And the platform was of course carpeted so the royal feet could step across in comfort! Admission to the platform then was of course restricted to invited guests but the crowds lining their route from the station up to and across Marlow Bridge and in Bisham probably got a good view.
Fire!
Temple House maintained their own steam fire engine, to service both the mansion and the Temple mills. It was operated by the staff of both. The Temple brigade had a uniform - a black or navy tunic with red facings, whereas Great Marlow Volunteer Fire Brigade had yellow facings to their clothing. The engine didn't just sit at Temple House if a fire was found to be in the neighborhood - it went out to those in the community beyond the estate for example at Hurley and Low Grounds Farm. It was remarked in 1880 that since it's formation it had had relatively little to do. That was soon going to change.
In the mid 1880s Temple House gained a new west wing containing 30 rooms including new dining, drawing and ball rooms. Marlow builders Y J Lovell did much of this work. But shortly after the main work on it was finished in 1886, there was a terrible fire there. Reports as to what happened exactly differ in some details but it seems that a member of staff (either one of the maids or the housekeeper) noticed smoke coming from panelling on the grand staircase. Shortly after flames broke through. Naturally the Temple fire brigade were quicky on hand but it seems the engine did not work properly for reasons that are unclear. In any case it seems the fire had quickly taken hold and the small firefighting team were overwhelmed. The Marlow, High Wycombe, Reading, Henley, and Maidenhead fire brigades were summoned - the Reading engine came on a specially chartered train. The fire engines kept by the Wethered's Marlow brewery and at Harleyford House also arrived. The estate workers and villagers living near Temple and Hurley flocked to the scene to help the fire fighting efforts. The fire became very dangerous, partly due to the danger of the copper roof falling in. It is incredible to record that three brave fireman of the Maidenhead brigade climbed onto this roof and drilled holes into it so water could be dumped through. This action was considered to almost certainly have saved the main house from total destruction. The firemen were lucky to escape with their lives as the copper roof subsequently partially collapsed. Another danger was averted when dynamite stored in the cellar was hastily removed!
The house steward Mr Keneally*** supervised efforts to remove as many valuable items as possible. With a house like Temple stuffed with antiques and old master paintings they obviously could only do so much. Most of the artwork and the library contents were saved, but much furniture destroyed. The Williams themselves were on their way home from Surrey at the time of the fire - they saw a glow in the sky and in stopping someone on the road to find out which property was ablaze were obviously shocked to find it was their own. They arrived back in time to help with the removal of property from the house.
There has long been a story that members of the public involved in fighting the fire got at the contents of the Williams wine cellar and/or cellar based home brewery and were heavily intoxicated before too long. Colonel Wethered arrived with the Marlow rifle volunteers to help guard the valuable items left on the lawn, and to assist in crowd control, and it's he that is said to have found the inebriated assistants - and put a stop to their alcoholic refreshment. I can only find reports that mention this some 50 years after the event though. Contemporary accounts highly praised the human chains of workers bringing buckets of water from the river. At the time of the fire the Temple brewery had a self contained building within the grounds so the stories of buckets of beer coming up from the cellar brewery can't be quite right although there was plenty of alcohol stored there - Temple had 6 beer and wine cellars.
When all was over, the new west wing was nothing more than a blackened shell and the main house was substantially damaged. Many servants lost all their belongings.
Rebuild
It's sad to say that while no lives were lost during the destructive fire, the same can't be said of the rebuilding process. Although several Marlow builders put in a tender for the valuable reconstruction work, the contract was won by a London firm. One of the employees of that fell 38 feet to his death in late 1887. He was engaged in taking down some scaffolding when the plank he was standing on was hit by another being lowered. This caused the victim to overbalance and fall. He stood no possibility of recovery.
The re-build took about 18 months and was reported at the time to have cost some £150,000. An opportunity was taken to extend the water mains of Marlow Water co to the house through Bisham.
Financial Concerns
While you may not think a family with a substantial property used to entertain royalty would be short of funds, there does seem to have been increasing difficulties in the Williams family as the 19th century wore on. The Williams youngsters were obviously not bought up to count their guineas too closely. Ifah Williams ran up debts even at Eton where he was said to have ordered 20 pairs of shoes in one year. In 1891 he was declared bankrupt and did not answer to a summons for the related examination. The court was told it was believed that he'd gone to Texas and had no intention of returning.
20th century
Reports that Temple House would be sold or let out continue to appear in the local newspapers in the 1890s and early 20th century and there was at least one unsuccessful attempt to offer it at auction but the Williams retained ownership.
When Owen the son of Thomas Williams himself died, the contents of the house were put up for sale. The 1922 list of items included in the auction comprised 6,000 books from the library, suites of Sheraton furniture and valuable paintings including a Canaletto amongst many other items. An attempt was made to sell the house itself in 1929 by it's then owner Mrs Hwfa Williams but there were no takers despite an "astounding reduction in price for a quick sale."
The house was put up for auction yet again in 1931 by order of the mortgagee. The advertising material accompanying that suggested the house could make a pleasant country club, school or hotel while the estate could be developed into a polo or horse breeding establishment. The Williams family had a long history of involvement with horse racing** and so the estate included a "straight mile" gallop and extensive stabling. It's easy to see why the conversion of part of the grounds to equestrian usage would have seemed appealing. Most of the estate offered with the house in 1931 was also part of the estate in 1915 so attempts to sell off bits of the park before were obviously largely unsuccessful. The purchaser was Hudson Kearley now Lord Devonport of Whittington. The house may have been unoccupied for some time at this point. Perhaps it was in a poor state. Either way, Devonport had it demolished. There has been some confusion about the date this occured. The Historic England listing for Temple suggests the house was knocked down in 1922 which is incorrect as it has a well documented life after that date. As mentioned above it was purchased by Devonport in 1931. A report in the Wokingham Times in 1932 mentions that the house had already been demolished by him**** and this is repeated in other local newspapers. So we can say the house finally disappeared in either late 1931 or the first half of 1932.
Although the exterior of the house does not particularly appeal to me, it was a landmark of the river and I am sure there were many that missed it. I would like to have seen the interior which included lavishly painted ceilings, it's massive oak staircase, the organ, and rooms decorated by Adams. Let's hope some of the removable features found a new life elsewhere.
*The Williams family vault is at Bisham Church
**Hwfa Williams, son of Thomas Peers Williams managed Sandown racecourse
*** Steward James Keneally sadly committed suicide in 1894 by drinking poison. He had worked for the Williams 18 years. Strangely the family butler Henry Phipps also commited suicide by drinking poison - this time prussic acid - in 1909.
****Thanks to Sue Cheetham for hunting this out for me.
Written & researched by Kathryn Day
Related posts:
Other posts related to Temple and nearby: here
Posts about other specific houses here
List of gardeners at Temple House here
More about Temple and Marlow fire brigade here
More about election goings on in Great Marlow:
The bribery of Jason Povey here
Election Rioters of 1880 here
SOURCES:
Burke, John, and Burke, Bernard. Encyclopaedia of Heraldry: Or General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Comprising a Registry of All Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time, Including the Late Grants by the College of Arms. United Kingdom, H.G. Bohn, 1851.
Combe, William. History of the Principal Rivers of Great Britain. Great Britain, William Bulmer & Co, 1797.
Cooke, William Bernard, and Cooke, George. Descriptions to the Plates of Thames Scenery. Engraved by W. B. Cooke & G. Cooke, from original drawings by eminent artists. United Kingdom, John Murray, Albemarle Street; and W.B. Cooke, 13, Judd Place East, New Road, 1818.
Gibbs, Robert. Worthies of Buckinghamshire and Men Of Note Of That County. United Kingdom, printed by the author, 1888
Guide to the Turf. United Kingdom, n.p, 1881.
Perry, Sampson. The Argus ; Or, General Observer: A Political Miscellany Containing the Most Important Events of Europe, and the Principal Occurrences in England, from the Meeting of Parliament, October 29, 1795, to Its Dissolution, May 18, 1796 with a Variety of Original Letters and Reflections on the Interesting and Critical Situation of the British Empire. United Kingdom, Symonds, 1796.
Sheahan, James Joseph. History and Topography of Buckinghamshire: Comprising a General Survey of the County, Preceded by an Epitome of the Early History of Great Britain. United Kingdom, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862.
The Thames - United Kingdom, Vernon, Hood & Sharpe 1811 Vol 1, (no author but engravings by William Bernard Cooke from originals by Samuel Owen esq.)
Sale catalogue for Temple House, 1915 with kind thanks to the Marlow Society.
Sale catalogue Temple House 1922
The Monthly Magazine. (Collected) United Kingdom, R. Phillips, 1802 & 1803
Supplement to Country Life, July 13th 1931
Country Life 8th June 1929, 9th May 1936
Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News 18th September 1875, 27th November 1875, 26th October 1878, 2nd July 1881, 6th June 1891
Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press 20th March 1886, 27th May 1922
Bucks Herald 23rd June 1877, 25th June 1881, 18th February & 27th July 1882
Bucks Free Press 7th September 1932
Reading Mercury 22nd July 1882, 16th October 1886, 16th June 1888
South Bucks Free Press 24th February 1865
Slough, Windsor and Eton Observer, 9th January and 27th November 1909
Maidenhead Advertiser 7th & 21st January 1880, 7th August 1883, 13th June 1894
Wokingham Times 7th October 1932 - thanks to Sue Cheetham for this.
National Monuments Record - Sale Catalogue SC 00091
Will of Thomas Williams, 1802. PROB 11/1384/305 National Archives
Kelly's Directory 1920 & 1928
Journals of the House of Commons February 3-December 13, 1842: Vol 97, HMSO
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