Near Hurley July 4th 1863
Hurley is a village and rural civil parish in Berkshire, England. Its riverside is agricultural, except for Hurley Priory, as are the outskirts of the village. The Olde Bell Inn adjoining the priory is believed to date from 1135.
Hurley is a linear development perpendicular to and adjoining the Upper Thames 4 miles (6.4 km) NW of Maidenhead and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) ENE of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire on the A4130. The parish includes the hamlets of Cockpole Green, Warren Row, Knowl Hill, Burchett's Green and part of Littlewick Green. Ashley Hill Forest, almost 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the village, is close to and almost equidistant between Warren Row, Knowl Hill and Burchett's Green and is the largest woodland. Other than this, the parish is mainly agricultural; however, many farms have spinneys of woodland adjoining.
- By the river is Hurley Priory, a partially moated Benedictine priory founded in 1086 as a cell of Westminster Abbey. The priory was dissolved in 1536, but its priory church survives as the current parish church and is a Scheduled Monument.
- 'The Olde Bell' Inn is reputedly the oldest still-working inn in Britain; parts of the inn date to 1135, when it was the hostelry of the priory.
- The old manor estate of Hall Place (1728) is now the home of Berkshire College of Agriculture.
- The Manor House in the High Street was used as Station Victor, forming part of Operation Sussex, the running of agents in occupied Europe by the American OSS.
- The former main priory building became a mansion known as Ladye Place, which stood adjoining the present parish church. It was the home of the Barons Lovelace. It was demolished in 1837 as uninhabitable.
- The Grassland Research Institute (GRI) also had a facility at Hurley until 1992.
Only one of the buildings at the foot of the hill in the south of the village street is listed. This southerly neighbourhood has the local name of Hurley Bottom but is 10 m (33 ft) higher than the riverside parts of the village.
The early 19th-century Frogmill Court is now a farmhouse adjoining the river, which in this parish consists of mainly grazing and pasture meadows. The farmhouse is Grade II listed. Frogmill Spinney forms a riverside park housing estate. Another group of riverside homes are accessed by a separate lane.
Richard Suter was born in Greenwich, Kent on 30th March 1798, to William Suter and his wife Sarah Knights. On 7th January 1825 he married Anne Ruth Burn.
English architect. As Surveyor to The Fishmongers' Company he designed the severe Presbyterian churches for Ballykelly (1825–7) and Banagher (1825) on the Company's Estate in County Londonderry, drawings of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1827. He was also responsible for the Model Farm (1823–4), the Lancasterian Schools (1828–30), the Company Agent's House (1830–2—now a hotel, much altered), a range of houses on the south side of the main road (1823–4), the lodge in the Presbyterian churchyard (1828), and the Dispensary (1829), all at Ballykelly, and all Classical. As Surveyor to Trinity House Corporation, he designed houses that were erected by Thomas Cubitt in 1821–3 on a site adjoining Trinity House. For The Fishmongers' Company he designed St Peter's Almshouses, Wandsworth, London (1849–51), and The Old School-House, Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk(1859), in an Elizabethan style.
On the 1841 Census Richard, an architect and lawyer, can be found living in London with his wife Ann (listed as Ruth) and their two children, Richard George and Andrew Burn. Living with them is Edward D Suter. 1851 finds the family living in Tottenham Court in London, by this time Andrew had left the home, but I am unable to trace him on the 1851 Census. In 1860 Andrew marries Amelia Damaris Harrison. Both Richard George and Andrew were to become ordained ministers, with Andrew later becoming a Bishop and emigrating to New Zealand. Sadly in 1854 Anne Ruth was to pass away. In 1861, widowed Richard, Justice of the Peace for Maidenhead, is living at Castle Hill, Maidenhead, Berkshire. In 1862 he married Elizabeth Anne Pocock. In 1871 and 1881 Richard and Elizabeth are still living in Castle Hill. Richard was to pass away on 1st March1883.
Richard Suter & Annesley Voysey, architects, had their office at number 35 Fenchurch Street, but they did not have it all to themselves as they shared the premises with W.C. Franks, a tea broker, who will get a separate post some other time. The earliest mention I found of Richard Suter in Fenchurch Street is in 1832 when he is listed at that address in a list of contributing members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. It says that he had been a member since 1829, but that does not mean he was already at 35 Fenchurch Street in that year.(1) In fact, that seems unlikely as the Sun Fire Office records give Messrs. Short and Co., merchants, as paying the insurance premium on the premises in May 1830. The Directory of British Architects 1834-1914 give the year 1827, but I do not know on what evidence. When Suter and Voysey became partners is also uncertain, but they had known each other since at least 1825 as Suter is named as one of the executors of Voysey’s will which was dated 22 July, 1825. The address given for Suter in the will is Suffolk Street, Southwark. Voysey then lives at Conway Street, Fitzroy Square.