Cobham Park is a set of about 22 apartments in and around a converted country mansion and associated lawn, gardens, fields and woodlands in the mainly rural south of the parish of Cobham, Surrey in England. Its old extent takes in the majority of Downside, Surrey, centred on a row of staff cottages. A medieval predecessor was home to a local

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

. In the 1720s a new mansion was built in the large grounds.

John Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier Field Marshal John Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier, (7 November 168028 April 1770), was a French Huguenot exile, born Jean Louis de Ligonier in Castres, Southern France. He had a long and distinguished career in the British army and was appointed ...

made it his home and within a few decades it was bought by Harvey Christian Combe, of Combe Delafield and Co. brewery, a member of the Combe family and once elected

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional pow ...

. Much of the estate, but excluding the main house, is owned by the same family. There are fields on the quite high

left bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terra ...

of the

River Mole The River Mole is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises in West Sussex near Gatwick Airport and flows northwest through Surrey for to the Thames at Hampton Court Palace. The river gives its name to the Surrey distri ...

; much of it is protected

Metropolitan Green Belt The Metropolitan Green Belt is a statutory green belt around London, England. It comprises parts of Greater London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey, parts of two of the three districts of Bedfordshire and a s ...

and the subject of other environmental protections.

History

Earliest records of a great house are in the 12th century when it was known as Down(e) Place. There are records of royal patronage from the late 13th century. The Downe family lived there for several generations, leading to the still extant name of Downside for the locality. The house was later also known as "Downe Hall". The house was rebuilt in the classical style in the 1720s by John Bridges. The design was based on an Italian villa of the 1680s. A description in Daniel Defoe's ''A Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain'' reads "... for the size of this House, there is hardly any other near London, which has more useful and elegant Apartments". The grounds were also landscaped and the

diverted. In the 1840s it remained, according to historian Brayley, "a handsome and substantial building, nearly of a square form, and has a neat portico, which was erected some years ago in place of a veranda. It includes a good saloon with a coved and ornamented ceiling, (now a billiard room), a library, and other convenient apartments, embellished with a few marble busts, and some good pictures."A Topographical History of Surrey, By Edward Wedlake Brayley Published 1850 (Page 410

/ref> In around 1750,

occupied and bought Cobham Park and entertained William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, William Pitt the Elder at a party soon afterwards. Ligonier appears to have used Cobham Park as a place of retreat and leisure (apparently he had a harem of four young women). The house passed to a nephew Edward, who died childless twelve years later in 1782. In 1806, Cobham Park was purchased by Harvey Christian Combe, a brewer, for £30,000 (). Harvey died in 1818 and left the house to his son Harvey, who died in 1857; the house then passed to a nephew, Charles Combe. The house was destroyed by fire in the early 1870s. A new house was built on the same foundations and completed in 1873 to a design by

Edward Middleton Barry Edward Middleton Barry RA (7 June 1830 – 27 January 1880) was an English architect of the 19th century. Biography Edward Barry was the third son of Sir Charles Barry, born in his father's house, 27 Foley Place, London. In infancy he was ...

, third son of Sir

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, architect of the Palace of Westminster.

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does not appear to have liked the new house, describing it as "very ugly French Renaissance". The Combe family left the house in the 1930s — Charles Combe moved to the opposite extreme of the parish,

Painshill Park Painshill (also referred to as "Pains Hill" in some 19th-century texts), near Cobham, Surrey, England, is one of the finest remaining examples of an 18th-century English landscape park. It was designed and created between 1738 and 1773 by Charl ...

, in 1904. Later, family members moved into other houses on the estate, notably Cobham Court, Cossins House and Cobham Lodge. The house was then leased from the Combes by

Eagle Star Insurance The Eagle Star Insurance Company plc (formerly Eagle Star Insurance Company Limited) was a leading British insurance business. It underwrote the full range of risks including liability, fire, accident, marine, motor, life, contingency and Pluvius ...

group (subsequently acquired by

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) as a venue and offices until 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, various companies leased parts of the mansion house as office/conference facilities, in a creaking state of repair. In 1979

Logica Logica plc was a multinational IT and management consultancy company headquartered in London and later Reading, United Kingdom. Founded in 1969, the company had offices in London and in a number of major cities across England, Wales and Scot ...

leased the house and outbuildings. It later bought the freehold from the Combes and restored the buildings. Logica sold the house for £5.5 million in 2001 to Frogmore Estates, which sold or leased it to Beechcroft (then a subsidiary of

John Laing plc John Laing Group plc is a British investor, developer and operator of privately financed, public sector infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, hospitals and schools through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and Private Finance Initiative ...

), which converted the house and outbuildings, and built new apartments on the site, to make a total of around 22 luxury retirement apartments.''An Estate For All Seasons. A History of Cobham Park, Surrey and its Owners and Occupiers'' David Taylor, Phillimore & Co. (publisher), 2006

References

{{Elmbridge Hamlets in Surrey Parks and open spaces in Surrey Country houses in Surrey Edward Middleton Barry buildings