inscribed and dated "Lodge of Appuldurcombe near God's Hill 1829"
Old Church Cottage on Appuldurcombe Road, Wroxall, was once Appuldurcombe House’s east entrance lodge.
Historic England asserts, in Appuldurcombe House’s listing, “[A] drive . . . lay roughly in the centre of the park’s east boundary. In the Regency period [1811 to 1820] this approach is likely to have become the principal entrance. The gateway flanked by stone rubble piers is of similar style to the gateways to the Inner Park and probably dates from the C19 as does Old Church Cottage built as its lodge. Old Church Cottage is a Regency Gothic building and stands within its garden on the south side outside the entrance. The drive is lined on the north side within the park with mature trees, many have Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs).”
However, the late Appuldurcombe House custodian Pat Rann, who followed both of her parents into the role, once told me that Old Church Cottage dated back to the original priory house at Appuldurcombe. Former cottage owner Ann O’Connor reckons the cottage was the lodge where young John and George Worsley died in an explosion in 1567.
There is nothing to support this theory.
Appuldurcombe Priory was established in 1090 and most likely closed in 1399. In 1414 it was passed to the Nuns Minoresses of Saint Claire without Aldgate, London, who leased the priory house and manor first to the Fry family before the Leighs and Worsleys obtained the lease. Henry VIII’s whipping boy and captain of the Isle of Wight, Sir James Worsley, made Appuldurcombe the Island’s most important estate. The priory house was recorded in a drawing in 1690 by Sir Robert Worsley. He began construction of the current house in 1701. “[T]he old priory houfe, was fituated a fmall diftance from the prefent manfion,” wrote Sir Richard Worsley, the last of the family, in 1781. “It underwent a thorough repair in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was taken down by Sir Robert Worfley, in the beginning of the prefent century.”
Old Church Cottage appears as a small oblong building running north to south in William Watts’ 1773 survey of Appuldurcombe for Sir Richard Worsley, so the suggestion it “probably dates from C19” is wrong. It’s shown on the survey at a right angle on the survey to Bobtail Cottage which served as a bakery to the priory house.
A cross-shaped Old Church Cottage, more or less as it appears today, is seen on an 1863 map of the estate.
So Old Church Cottages’s porch, with a Griffin over the door, was added between 1773 and 1863. I suspect Charles Anderson-Pelham, the first Baron Worsley and first Earl of Yarborough, must have enlarged Old Church Cottage in the Regency period. He inherited Appuldurcombe through marriage in 1806. Between then and his death in 1847 Lord Yarborough “made considerable alterations in the interior of the mansion, which has been entirely remodelled”.
Lord Yarborough also did a lot of building work on the estate.
Span Lodge, began at Appuldurcombe’s South entrance in 1805, has the image of a Griffin above the door alongside a buckle from the Yarborough coat of arms.
Historian J Vincent Jenkins claimed Lord Yarborough mistakenly thought the Griffin was the heraldic beast of the Worsleys instead of the Wyvern. The Griffin was a mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, typically depicted with pointed ears and with the eagle's legs taking the place of the forelegs. The Wyvern was a winged two-legged dragon with a barbed tail.
A Wyvern appears over the large central arch on the Godshill Park side of the main entrance to Appuldurcombe House, Freemantle Gate, designed by James Wyatt and built for Sir Richard Worsley in 1775.
The Griffin also appears above the door of the Godshill School headmaster’s house Lord Yarborough built around 1826. The beast also gives its name to The Griffin public house Lord Yarborough built in the early to mid 19th century to replace the small and seedy Bell Inn in Godshill.
The Appuldurcombe estate was broken up after Lord Yarborough’s death.
Old Church Cottage was listed in an 1853 estate catalogue as “Lodge Cottage, East Entrance, occupied by C. Kingswell”. Kingswell also occupied the Smith’s Shop, one of the outbuildings alongside the Coach House within the grounds of the mansion.
Old Church Cottage is described appears in a set of postcards published by Appuldurcombe College between 1866 and 1900 as “Lodge at East Entrance to Appuldurcombe Park”.
The postcard of “Appuldurcombe Lodge, Wroxall, I.W.” was sent shortly after Appuldurcombe was, once again, inhabited by monks.
“The whole place suggests fallen greatness,” the message on the back reads. “House once sold to some monks, who came over when they were kicked out of France years ago.”
The monks of Saint Peter’s Abbey, Solesmes, sought sanctuary from between September 1901, and April 1908.
Richard Suter (1797–1883).
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.