Spinfield (s) as a name long predates the existence of Spinfield Lodge / House or the modern housing development. Spinfield Farm is used to refer in 1700s to the 2-3 enclosures of land such as Spinfield Mead which had long gone by that name and to the nearby areas such as Poynetts and Oxford Lane Close which were almost always let and farmed in tandem with it, around 30-40 acres in total. This farm did have a farmhouse attached to it, but I can't not say for certain where that was. The English Place Name Society journal of 1925 suggests Spinfield as a place name originated from a 13th century Marlow landowner William de Espineville.
1804 - first found use of "Spinfield Lodge" as place of residence. Occupier William? Ongley of Great Marlow, who appears as witness to two legal documents, and a will. (He has not been researched further at this point). This mention therefore predates the construction of the Lodge detailed below.
1807 - date of construction of Spinfield Lodge based on descriptions of the house for sale when it was said to be 13 and 22 years old respectively. These sale descriptions match one of a house built by William Bond, builder of Marlow at this time. Biography of William here. Was the earlier lodge the farmhouse, another building or is the (admittedly consistent) remembered date of construction a few years out?
1808 - first advertisment showing it available to lease appeared. A term of 3 years was offered. At this point it had entrance hall, 7 bedrooms, drawing, dining and breakfast rooms plus "excellent" kitchen and domestic offices. Coach house and stabling. "Suitable for small genteel family" [Oxford Journal]
1812 - up for lease again. Resident unknown. Now 8 bedrooms. Advertisements stressed the home's modern interior with folding doors between reception rooms ,allowing the whole to be turned into one large space for balls etc.
1813/14 - Mr Sawyer resident. Several possible candidate Mr Sawyers within Marlow of right social standing to afford this property. The one at Spinfield was definitely a strong financial supporter of the original Marlow Institution for adult education. More on this endeavour here . This was not the same as the later Literary and Science society. The Mr Sawyer of Spinfield was most likely William Sawyer previously of West Street who died 1814, a friend of Bond the builder.
1820 : up for sale (leasehold) with 10 acres. Described in the Morning Herald as as substantially arranged so as to admit construction of another level on top if desired.
1824 -1829 at least. Henry Shepherd Pearson Esq and his wife Caroline. Henry was a man who had spent many years in the Bombay civil service in various roles from circa 1793. Also civil servant at the settlement on Prince Edward Island, now Penang, Malaysia. Later a merchant. Son of Admiral Richard Pearson.
1829 - lease for sale again. This time it was spelled out that the house and the core 10 acre garden are leased from the Dean and Chapter and Bristol, for a peppercorn annual fee. The rest of the 5-6 acres was usually let with the house as paddocks/parkland was leased from the Vicar and Churchwardens of Marlow, later the General Charities of Marlow, administered by the same. (This 6 acre area is also known as Martin's Close and may be described as part of the "Poor Lands" eg land which was used to generate income to support the poor as result of a charitable bequest either of the land itself or funds to purchase it ). House had been enlarged and newly "fitted up". Had gained a bathroom and water closets above and below, plus servants hall. Stabling had doubled since 1808. "Excellent" cellarage. Outbuildings now included gardener's cottage, carthouse, piggeries, cowhouse and dairy. First mention of the "paved veranda".
1832 : leasehold up for sale. "Very large sums recently been expended on improving every part of the house and grounds". First mention of the "ornamental lodge" which was the gardeners residence, possibly the same gardener's cottage mentioned 2 years previously. (Known as The Lodge, Spinfield) Carriage drive extended. Offered with 15 acres of pasture, and available with or without farming stock and household furniture. Now suitable for a "moderate" family. Lease purchased by James Simpson Esq, merchant of the Constant Spring and Albion Estates, Jamaica. (Sugar and coffee). Wife Mary.
1833 - Spinfield Lodge and garden was valued at £75 in the Parish Assessment.
1834 - James Simpson was leasing the 6 acre Martin's Close (see above) plus Spinfield Mead of 7 acres, the latter from the Dean and Chapter of Bristol. A separate 6 acre close known as Spinfield was leased by Mr Muspratt and farmed by Mr Webb.
1840s - house continued to be leased by the Simpsons who lived there with the daughter of Mary by her first marriage - Ann Crosbie. Ann was blind and suffers from mental instability (as defined at the time). See below. They also spent much time in London.
1851 - James Simpson died at Spinfield. He left the property (still leasehold) to his wife during her life, and it was then to be inherited by his nephew James Carson, who had been managing the Jamaica estates for his uncle.
1851-1858 - the widow Mrs Carson lived at Spinfield. She was an active member of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and donated to many charitable causes in Marlow. "Her little kindnesses.. were unbounded". Both she and her husband were buried at All Saints. After her mother's death, poor Ann Crosbie was declared insane under the terms of the Lunacy Act 1853. Her affairs were managed by trustees.
1859 - James Carson took on his inheritance, with wife Sarah nee Marriott. Their first child born at the house arrives prematurely and remains constantly ill. Little Brenda Paulina died age 13 months old while on a visit with family to Brighton. James had previously spent many years in Jamaica, serving as a JP there and as a major in the Jamaican Militia. He buys the adjacent meadow known as Crooked Close to add to Spinfield's pleasure grounds.
1861 - James Carson is voted to chair at a meeting organised to set up a Committee to promote the abolition of slavery in America. He is said to have always "encouraged" its abolition on estates his business connections dealt with. His family did not use use enslaved labour on their own properties. The meeting is addressed by two black preachers, one a former slave living in Canada, the other a distinguished orator from the United States. Carson says he will take down the name of any man willing to help "so good a cause as the emancipation of slaves". More on the history of slavery and abolition in Marlow history in this post
1862 - Spinfield Lodge is undergoing extensive work to enlarge and improve it yet again. It was to be transformed from a villa to a mansion they said, and would will henceforth be one of the principal seats in the region. The work was completed within a year and Carson celebrated with a grand celebration at the house, attended by a military band and all the local gentry. Amongst the new features are a conservatory and more glasshouses.
1863 - James Carson is reported to have "recently" succeeded in his desire to purchase Spinfield House and core grounds from the Dean & Chapter of Bristol so he now holds it freehold. He opens the gardens to the public so they can admire his recent estate improvements.
1865 - James Carson was in Jamaica and became an unofficial correspondent for several London newspapers when he wrote to describe the "murderous" uprising by native workers on his and neighbouring estates around Kingston. He was back in England by the end of the year but the trouble did not go away. A dispute over pay on his Hopewell Estate in Jamaica turned violent and the estate manager was seriously assaulted. James claimed that his agent regularly visits the property and would deal with any "genuine" grievances. His language often smacked of the dismissive attitude to the capacity of the non white population to manage their own affairs which was commonly expressed at the time. Back home, Carson donated a large amount to the work of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, which met at High Wycombe. He seems to have concerned himself with mainly local affairs overall in the late 1860's, serving a term as the High Sheriff of Bucks and working as a magistrate.
1872 - James Carson died at his London house.
1873 : the 11 ft high granite and marble obelisk monument to James Carson was placed in All Saints churchyard where you will still find it today. His eldest son, lawyer Captain James Simpson Carson occupied Spinfield, now often called Spinfield House, until 1883, when he began to prefer to remain in London. But during his decade in Marlow Spinfield was used to host dozens of events from Sunday school treats, to agricultural and horticultural shows and outdoor "promenade concerts" by the Choral Society.
1884 - Charity commissioners sold their land at Spinfield and nearby, raising a large sum. From then on Spinfield was offered as a freehold property in entirety. Some of the money was reserved to pay for the education of poor girls from Marlow parish at teacher training colleges.
1885 - Simpson Carson family tried to sell Spinfield but it failed to find a buyer at auction. Offered again for sale by private treaty, with 35 acres of land. 18 bed and dressing rooms. The garden is now advertised as containing a fernery, fountain and tennis lawns as well as the standard glasshouses, vineries and orchard.
1886 - 1908 lawyer Robert Hay Murray purchased the property. He was the grandson of an earl. Previously he lived in Kent and Surrey. And of course, Hay Murray began to do renovations on the house as soon as he took possession. Robert usually let out Spinfield Lodge during the river season when he was either in London or abroad. For example he spends 4 months in Italy in 1893 and spends 6 months on the continent the following year. A regular summer tenant wass Hudson E Kearley Liberal M P, (later Lord Devonport) founder of what became known as the International Stores/International Tea stores. He rented the home year after year. Later Kearley would rent Medmenham manor house, and own Wittington House and States farm near Medmenham. When he was there, Hay Murray continues the tradition of letting the park at Spinfield be used for many events, including agricultural shows and children's treats. He was very interested in the promotion of good practice in farming and horticulture. A role as magistrate also comes his way, a job he had also fulfilled in Surrey. In 1898 Murray opened the grounds of Spinfield to the public on Sunday afternoons during the summer. I believe he did so in other years too. Despite an earlier retracted news story to the contrary, entry was restricted to the those with an invitation card, which had to be applied for in advance.
1908 - 1914 Mrs Elizabeth Hay Murray remained at Spinfield after her husbands death. Their son Robert Evelyn sadly pre deceased his mother in 1910.
1914 on Mrs Scott Murray death, the house contents are sold off including her husbands huge library of antiquarian books. Spinfield itself with 34 acres was then offered at auction but we are uncertain that it found an immediate buyer. The house had now mushroomed to include 17, yes 17, bedrooms and dressing rooms, two staircases and 6 reception rooms! It had a garage and now not 1 but 3 cottages offered with it. A particular attraction was the provision of mains gas and water plus a telephone connection. If not sold does the widow's son retain ownership? He died in 1917.
1916 - Spinfield was used as a HQ by officers of the Home Counties Royal Engineers, who are camped at Marlow Common. When their Captain Ticehurst, of Battle, East Sussex married Muriel Kilby at Bisham, the Engineers cook used the Spinfield kitchen to produce a wedding cake shaped like the emblem of the RE. Long term Spinfield head gardener Thomas Blackmore uses flowers from the gardens to produce a large floral bell to decorate the church. (Muriel was the daughter of Complete Angler proprietor Robert Kilby/Kilbey)
1919 - purchased by the future Lord and Lady Terrington, then known as the honourable Horace and Vera Woodhouse. Vera was a pioneering lady MP and the two lead an eventful life, which eventually saw Terrington jailed, and the couple divorced. A post on them will follow. Suffice to say they spent vast sums on Spinfield, which was said to resemble a palace when you walked in. He bought many antique and lavish fittings into the house.
1927 - contents of the house sold by order of the mortgagee, followed by the house itself and 53 acres. Building purchased by Charles Stambois who was rumoured to be planning to turn the lavish interior into a residential country club/hotel for businessmen. Plans were said to be advancing in 1928 but then Stambois invited the gentlemen of the press to the house to tell them the official new plan.....
1928 - Stambois says he is intending to develop the house into a health club with a "sports arena", to be run in conjunction with the New Health Society. The society was founded in 1925 to promote fresh air, exercise, a wholesome diet and sunbaths. The founder thought the population was "degenerating" and these actions would make the nation great again, at least as far as their moral and physical health went. Fibre was key and your life goal was to achieve 3 bowel movements a day. Stambois seems to have expected the club would provide some of the funding. A sale of his extensive and very valuable wine cellar was intended to help meet the cost. Stambois planned to add an extension to the east wing to accommodate a new larger dining room plus a ball room. There is some indication he may have started work on this part. The roof would also be removed to allow for a new top floor of bedrooms. Behind the house were to be hard and grass tennis courts. The "sports arena" would occupy a meadow to the east of Spinfield Lane. It was intended to comprise a swimming pool, "galloping tracks", a gymnasium and changing rooms. But regardless of this ambitious plans, Stambois then suddenly offered it for sale again later that year.
It was purchased by Henry Rupert Hood Barr, a managing director of a steel barrel making company, Scammels. We don't think he necessarily intended to live there originally, but seemingly purchased it as an investment opportunity. I say so because he himself offered it for sale within a year of buying it, with various parts of the grounds divided into plots and offered for building purposes. There were no takers for the actual house, but in 1930 we are told that the owner intends to develop Spinfield Lodge into a mixture of apartments and offices. He also had a plan to build a commercial laundry in the grounds. This would exploit a new German cleaning process apparently. Did any part of this actually happen? Well apparently not as in 1936 the house was sadly due for demolition, and therefore the entire contents are up for grabs, from floorboards, to the doors, staircase and wooden paneling. We have heard rumours that the house suffered a fire at this time, which was used as a reason for the demolition, but we can find no contemporary report of this as yet. As you can see from the pre demolition sale, the sort of wooden fixtures and fittings you wouldn't expect to survive a severe blaze were intact at that point so if there was a fire, it presumably came after the decision to demolish the property had already been made. Also note that the house sale includes antique stone carved crest and fireplace both dated 1649 but it can't be said they belonged to an older version of Spinfield Lodge with any certainty. Both Hay Murray and Terrington were said to have added antique features to the house. Hay Murray was a keen antiquarian in particular, interested in archaeology and a member of the local society for that. He even had some ancient Egyptian artefacts at Spinfield.
1938 - Architect Edgar Ranger is commissioned by the Hood Barrs to build a smaller house to replace Spinfield Lodge of old, but on the same site. Nicholas Pevsner tells us in his book "Buildings of Buckinghamshire" that the Italianate Georgian kitchen of the original house was preserved within the design, which is a unexpected delight as it means a tiny piece of Spinfield Lodge hopefully still exists. The ice house, in an artificial mound, was visible near the entrance to Spinfield Nurseries very clearly in the early 1970s (the first nursery was offered for sale in 1978) but have become progressively overgrown. In 1973 the remains of the horse drawn extraction wheel for a deep garden well at Spinfield (literally powered by a donkey) were reported by a journal of industrial architecture. I remember seeing this some years later.
1940s - the new Spinfield Lodge most often just called "Spinfields" (plural) was still home to the Hood Barrs. In the second world war it was partially requisitioned for billets for those working at the top secret facility at nearby Danesfield although the owners were allowed to stay put too. Some scandal came about as the brother in law of Hood Barrs was arrested at Spinfield as a spy and Nazi sympathiser and subsequently committed suicide. For more see the post here. The Hood Barr family remained at the Lodge until the mid 1950's.
Written & researched by Kathryn Day
Related Posts:
Use the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu to find every mention of a person here - there are 4,390 individuals listed there as of April 2022.
List of gardeners employed at Spinfield: here
Other posts relating to specific houses/locations can be found on the index here: here
SOURCES INCLUDE:
Beamon, Sylvia, Roaf, Susan - Ice Houses of Britain, Routledge 1990.
Wills of Arabella Gilbert, Thomas Langley, William Sawyer, and James Simpson transcribed by Charlotte from PCC copies National Archives Kew.
Goddard, Charles. An Account of The Origin, Principles, Proceedings, And Results of A Institution..1816.
Census 1841,1871 - transcript from microfilm by Charlotte Day and Jane Pullinger.
1833 Parish Assessment, original notebooks held by our family.
1834 - Owners and Occupiers of Land assessment, Great Marlow, original notebooks held by our family.
Accounts and Papers, Great Britain Houses of Parliament, Vol 49, digitised by Google.
Journal of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1859.
Kelly's Directory of the Titled, Landed and Official Classes,1880. (Kelly & Co)
Illustrated London News Vol 49 , digitised by Google.
Decorative Arts and Modern Interiors yearbook, 1940
Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 1 August 1827.
Reading Mercury 16th September 1772, 5th October 1861. Copy from the British Library and accessed via the BNA.
Oxford Journal collected editions 1808 and 1812.
Morning Herald 1 May 1820, 18th May 1829, 16 January 1851
Bucks Gazette, 29th April 1832.
Bucks Herald 12 February 1859, 4 July 1914, 8 December 1920. Via the BNA as above.
"Fashionable Arrivals", scrap of news sheet! London,1825
Boyles Court and Country Guide,1884.
Country Life, collected volume for 1919.
The Motor Owner, 1 December 1927.
South Bucks Free Press 14 February 1862 & 10th April 1863
Buckinghamshire Advertiser and Free Press 2 May 1936
Lahore Civilian and Military Gazette, 10 April 1930
Sporting Gazette 10 November 1885. Digitised by Google.
Bedfordshire Times, 4 June 1872.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 3 June 1908. Copy from British Library Archive as above.
Reports of Charity Commissioners of Great Marlow, 1884.
GRO death index.
Reading Standard, 12 May 1928
Bexhill on Sea Chronicle July 1916
Gardeners Chronicle and Horticultural Trade Journal, Collected Edition. 1955 (Haymarket Publishing)
Kelly's Directory 1939. (Kelly's Directory Ltd)
Pevsner Nicholas, Wilkinson Elizabeth - Buildings of Buckinghamshire. 1994 Edition.
Journal of Industrial Archaeology, 1973.
English Place Name Society journal, Volume 2 1925.
Walford, Edward County Families of the United Kingdom 1860
South Bucks Standard - 22 July & 5 August 1898, old Wycombe Libraries.
Link to founding aims of New Health Club: https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/health/id/2521/
© MarlowAncestors.
