West Barnes Park from 1866

mhs_wjr_93_33 - Randall Lodge, Camrose & 1-2 the Maisonettes, Grand Drive SW20 (10-1971)
mhs_wjr_93_31 - 192-206 Grand Drive SW20 (10-1971)

West Barnes Park from 1866

On 3 November 1866 West Barnes Park was sold to Richard Garth of Morden for development.³⁹

Garth paid for a station to serve his planned development, and on opening in 1871 it was called Raynes Park station, though the land on which it stood was never part of the Rayne estate. Grand Drive and Blenheim Road were laid out in the 1880s with freehold building plots. But the enterprise was not as successful as he had hoped. About a dozen mansions were built at first, and more in the 1890s, as well as the more modest constructions by James Randall - Randall Lodge, Bonaccord and Bijou Villas - all completed by 1899. The early 1900s saw more varied properties.

Upon being knighted in 1875 and appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature, Bengal, a post he held until 1886, Garth offered his Raynes Park properties for auction on 20 June 1873, as part of what he called his 'Morden Park Estate, a highly important and valuable Freehold Manorial Property situate in the Parishes of Morden, Merton, Malden and Sutton', and among the 30 lots, the Sale Particulars include the following: ⁴⁰

Lot 8 (coloured pink):

Freehold building estate forming part of Raynes Park 72a 1r 28p

Lot 9 (coloured blue):

Freehold building estate forming part of Raynes Park, including farm house: 8 bedrooms, parlour, sitting-room, kitchen, store-room, coal-house, dairy, greenhouse, brewhouse & wood shed; cow-house, cart-sheds, stable, loose-box, chaise-house; and, at a little distance, enclosed yard with range of cow-sheds, chaff house, &c.; good kitchen & flower gardens & orchard, and 101a 1r 15p

Lot10 (coloured yellow): [=Bushey Mead]

Two freehold enclosures of productive accommodation meadowland 14a 2r 30p

A further auction took place in 1879: Sale Particulars with plan – Portion of Morden Park estate: valuable freehold residential and building properties known as Hill House, Morden Park and Raynes Park, for sale by auction by Messrs Driver & Co, 4 Whitehall, London. ⁴¹

Lot 4: Raynes Park 89a 2r 29p

Lot 5: Raynes Park 24a 3r 24p

Lot 6: Raynes Park 46a 0r 32p

A further auction was held on 29 June 1880: Sale Particulars - Surrey. Portions of the Morden Park estate comprising Morden Park mansion and land, three attractive villas and valuable building properties, to be sold by auction by Messrs Driver & Co, Surveyors, Land Agents and Auctioneers, 4 Whitehall, London. ⁴²

The surviving copy of the plan is torn, but shows Lot 14 to have been of Bushy Mead, which had been Lot 10 of 1873]

Most of the former fields were leased to the Raynes Park Golf Club between 1893 and 1924, after which they were acquired by George Blay, together with the Cannon Hill estate. Blay had built most of the houses on the estate by 1930, though some work remained to be done after the War by New Ideal Homesteads.

From the 1930s several sports grounds were created, though many of these have now been developed for housing. The line of trees running north-south through Prince George’s Playing Fields is a remnant of the eastern boundary of West Barnes Park.

⁴⁰ SHC K85/2/379

⁴¹ SHC K85/7/28

⁴² SHC K85/7/29