CHAPTER XI. THE HOUSES. ORLEANS HOUSE ART COLLECTION AND LIBRARY OF H.R.H. THE DUC D'AUMALE-YORK HOUSE-" FORMOSA" Lodge. THE MANOR HOUSE, called also Arragon House, has been described elsewhere.* ORLEANS HOUSE.-A messuage of the Manor of Twickenham was, says Lysons, leased to Sir Thomas Newenham for twenty-one years in 1567; the same, with fifty-one acres of land, was leased in 1599 to Jane Harden. A lease for thirty years, to commence from 1622, was granted to Andrew Pitcarne, groom of the bed-chamber. When the parliamentary survey was taken in 1650, the lease was vested in his widow, Charity Pitcarne. It is described in that survey as a pleasant and delightful tenement, about twenty poles from the river, built partly with brick and partly with timber, and Flemish wall, with comely chambers; the gardens, not only rare for pleasure, but exceedingly profitable, being planted with cabbages, turnips, and carrots, and many other such-like creatures; there were sixteen acres of cherry gardens. The estate was sold, on the expiration of the lease, to Richard Ell. Page 13. Immediately after the Restoration it was demised to Richard Webb and George Gosfreight for twenty-one years; in 1671 to Mrs. Jane Davies; a reversionary lease was granted the same year to Sir Charles Cobb for fourteen years, commencing in 1688; and a second. lease was afterwards granted to Mrs. Davies for eight years and a half, commencing in 1702. Jenkyn Lewis, in his Memoirs of Prince William Henry Duke of Gloucester, says that Queen Anne, then Princess of Denmark, took, in 1694, as change of air was considered necessary for the young duke, "three houses at Twickenham, which belonged to Mrs. Davies, an ancient gentlewoman, my Lord Berkeley's aunt, a very temperate, healthy old lady, who was said to live chiefly on herbs, without animal food." The duke brought with him his regiment of boys, which he used to exercise on the ait opposite the house. This ait, which was known in recent times as "the Swan Islet," has now become a part of the mainland. Mr. Samuel Prat, who became vicar of the parish in 1712, was the prince's tutor; he succeeded in teaching his youthful charge the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, but failed to induce him to attend the daily prayers of the household. The duke died in his twelfth year. When Sir Benjamin Bathurst ("a very worthy man ") came, at the close of the princess's visit, by her order, to tender to Mrs. Davies a hundred guineas for the month during which she had occupied the houses, that lady refused them, and also objected to be paid for the produce of her field of ripe cherries, which she gave to the family. Lord Rochester's reversionary interest in this estate (his lordship at this time held the manor) having been purchased by Mrs. Davies, she made it over to James Johnstone, Esq., Secretary of State for Scotland, who, in 1702, obtained from the queen dowager a lease of thirteen years, from 1720. Mr. Johnstone removed the ancient structures existing on the land, and built the present house after the model of country seats in Lombardy. He built the large octagon room at the end of the house especially for the reception and entertainment of Queen Caroline, consort of George II., who visited him here. The queen, during her residence at Hampton Court, was fond of coming down the river early in the morning to visit Lady Catherine Johnstone and to breakfast in the beautiful gardens, in which Mackay (in his Tour through England, which was published in 1720) says that "Secretary Johnstone had the best collection of fruit of most gentlemen in England; that he had slopes for his vines, from which he made some hogsheads of wine a year; and that Dr. Bradley, in his Treatise on Gardening, ranked him among the first gardeners in the kingdom." After the death of the Secretary (who had obtained another short lease from King George II.) the property was purchased by George Morton Pitt, Esq., formerly Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies. It came afterwards, through his marriage with this gentleman's daughter, to Lord Brownlow Bertie, brother of the Duke of Ancaster. Soon after the death of Lady Bertie it was purchased by Sir George Pococke, K.B., who married a granddaughter of Mr. Pitt.* * Ironside in giving these facts says that Governor Pitt was known by the name of "Diamond Pitt," confusing him with Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras and father of the Earl of Chatham. |