Description

SU 84 NE
12/135

MOOR PARK LANE
Moor Park

26.4.50

II*
The present exterior of the house is late C18 and is a rebuilding of the C17 house of Sir William Temple, famous in his time for its gardens.

The garden front (southwest) is three storeys, with a taller central motif consisting of a wide angular bay with a slightly projecting centre. The bay has three windows and the flanking wings two windows each. The main cornice is at first floor level with a moulded string over at second floor cill level, both carried round central bay, and the cornice curved segmentally over central window of bay. Each wing has a central three-panes wide second floor window in segmental arched recess; lining with panels on each face of central bay. A moulded string at head of walls to side wing is carried round centre bay; the latter carried up another storey with a square window on each face, and crowned with a second cornice, with a pediment on line of main wall.

The entrance front has symmetrical flanking wings of similar general design and a later arcaded porch across ground floor between the wings. within, staircase with "crinoline" balustrade; oval plaster medallions in elegant plaster frames on staircase walls.
Range of one-storey brick outbuildings (altered) adjoins house to northwest (now in domestic use). Foundations of former banqueting house and gazebo also remain to the northwest. The sundial said to mark the grave of Temple's heart has disappeared. The lines of the original terraced garden leading to the river remain, but no architectural features. The planting is now informal, and a very fine cedar stands in front of the house, which is backed by the long wooded ridge of the northeast side of the Wey Valley. The great beauty of this valley, both sides of which are thickly wooded and which extends from the railway near' Farnham junction to the entrance of Waverley Park, and sweeps round through the park is so far unaffected by modern building.

Moor Park was the house for fifteen years of Sir William Temple and his wife Dorothy Osbourne. Jonathan Swift, as secretary to Sir Wlilliam, wrote here "A Tale of a Tub", "The Battle of the Books"" and here also he met Stella. Charles Darwin was a visitor here. Earl Roberts lived at Moor Park in the early part of this century.

See article in Country Life for November 25, 1949, tracing the outlines of Sir William Temple's garden, and the existence of a C17 house within the present building.

Listing NGR: SU8621646529

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Moor Park at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17548889

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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