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Hascombe Court
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<h2 id="historical-development">Historical development</h2> <p>In 1906 Robert E. A. Murray, a descendant of the <a href="/facts/Duke_of_Atholl/1Nf2Gucv">Duke of Atholl</a>, employed the architect J. D. Coleridge to build him a house in a woodland clearing on a plateau above the village of <a href="/facts/Hascombe/2pcV4Dj3">Hascombe</a>. In 1910 Murray died, and subsequently G. E. B. Kennedy bought the house. By 1912 the house remained largely surrounded by woodland, into which had been set to the north the kitchen garden, with, to the north-east, an orchard. Coleridge was a pupil of <a href="/facts/Edwin_Lutyens/uByyBKRS">Edwin Lutyens</a>, leading <a href="/facts/Nikolaus_Pevsner/lgISoPyl">Nikolaus Pevsner</a> in the Surrey edition of his <a href="/facts/Buildings_of_England/Debumppo">Buildings of England</a> series to praise Coleridge's "fine Bargate stone entrance front in his masters manner" but reserving criticism for the "sloppy garden front of half-timber".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11"><sup>11</sup></a> </p><p>By 1916 a further clearing had been formed to the south of the house, from which a long vista extended south into the woodland. A field to the east had been planted up as parkland, with scattered clumps of trees and singles. Kennedy died in 1921. </p> Gertrude Jekyll <p>The property was bought by <a href="/facts/Sir_John_Jarvis,_1st_Baronet/yyhwsT1x">Sir John Jarvis, 1st Baronet</a>, who employed <a href="/facts/Gertrude_Jekyll/YcEbbc2U">Gertrude Jekyll</a> in 1922 to extend the garden, working with the architect C. Clare Nauheim. In 1928-9 Sir John employed <a href="/facts/Percy_Cane/FlAsrYF0">Percy Cane</a> to extend the garden further, and some of Jekyll's features appear to have been overlain by Cane's work. Cane produced a plan of around 1928, from which the names of the garden compartments have been taken and used in this description. Jarvis bought unemployed miners from the northern industrial town of <a href="/facts/Jarrow/j3UammIT">Jarrow</a> to Hascombe Court, where they built a Japanese style water and rock garden to Cane's design.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12"><sup>12</sup></a> Sir John Jarvis died in 1950. The house and estate were then bought by Major Claude Chapman Jacobs, a retired City ship broker who died in 1972. </p> <h2 id="present-day">Present day</h2> <p>The property was subsequently sold but has since remained in private ownership. It was owned by the broadcaster and television presenter <a href="/facts/Chris_Evans_(presenter)/E8IGVjJ8">Chris Evans</a> who lived there with his second wife, the actress <a href="/facts/Billie_Piper/guljNvRF">Billie Piper</a>. Evans renovated the property and stated in a 2000 interview that "I want to make it beautiful. This house deserves to be brought into this century. If you look at the old pictures of it, taken 75 years ago, it was a mess then. I don't want to make it all right, I want to make it fantastic".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13"><sup>13</sup></a> In 1999 2,418 kg (5,331 lb) of yew clippings were collected from the Hascombe Court estate by Evans's gardeners, and were given to the cancer research charity, Limehurst. The clippings were used in drug research for breast cancer.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a> Evans sold Hascombe Court for £10 million to the Russian businessman <a href="/facts/Boris_Berezovsky_(businessman)/lSv7fvS9">Boris Berezovsky</a> in 2004.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15"><sup>15</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16"><sup>16</sup></a> The adjoining 130 acre Hascombe Court Farm was sold by Evans for £6 million to <a href="/facts/Anthea_Turner/YtHX9cb0">Anthea Turner</a> and <a href="/facts/Grant_Bovey/E9hNg3pT">Grant Bovey</a> in 2009.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17"><sup>17</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> <ul><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110201172839/http://www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/component/option,com_parksandgardens/task,site/id,4299/tab,history/Itemid,">Parks-and-gardens_uk: Hascombe Court, Godalming, England</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Historic England, "Hascombe Court including attached forecourt walls (1384634)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Historic England, "Hascombe Court (1001475)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Historic England, "Garden house to north of Hascombe Court (1384918)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Historic England, "Gazebo to north east of Hascombe Court (1384920)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>Historic England, "Hard tennis pavilion to north west of Hascombe Court (1384922)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Historic England, "Former grass tennis pavilion to south west of Hascombe Court (1384913)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:7"><p>Historic England, "Summer house in rock garden to east of Hascombe Court (1384910)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:8"><p>Historic England, "Garden terrace with steps, lily pond and urn to east of Hascombe Court (1385387)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:9"><p>Historic England, "Garage block at Hascombe Court (1384900)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:10"><p>Historic England, "Kitchen garden walls at Hascombe Court including attached glasshouses (1384907)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 22 March 2018 <a href="/wiki/Historic_England" target="_blank">/wiki/Historic_England</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:11"><p>Ian Nairn; Nikolaus Pevsner; Bridget Cherry (1971). Surrey. Yale University Press. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-300-09675-0. <a href="978-0-300-09675-0" target="_blank">978-0-300-09675-0</a> <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:12"><p>Bowen Pearse; Chris McCooey (1991). Companion to Japanese Britain and Ireland. In Print. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-873047-10-1. <a href="978-1-873047-10-1" target="_blank">978-1-873047-10-1</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:13"><p>"So this is what's really going on inside Chris Evans' £6m mansion". Get Surrey. 8 September 2000. Retrieved 23 March 2018. <a href="https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/whats-really-going-inside-chris-4858775" target="_blank">https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/whats-really-going-inside-chris-4858775</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:14"><p>"So this is what's really going on inside Chris Evans' £6m mansion". Get Surrey. 8 September 2000. Retrieved 23 March 2018. <a href="https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/whats-really-going-inside-chris-4858775" target="_blank">https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/whats-really-going-inside-chris-4858775</a> <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:15"><p>Patrick Barkham (27 November 2004). "Chris Evans downsizes". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 March 2018. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/nov/27/broadcasting.uknews" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/nov/27/broadcasting.uknews</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:16"><p>David Brown and Alex Spence (25 March 2013). "The last thing Boris Berezovsky had left was his pride, then he lost that too". The Times. Retrieved 23 March 2018. <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/the-last-thing-boris-berezovsky-had-left-was-his-pride-then-he-lost-that-too-2zjdjc9x69p" target="_blank">https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/the-last-thing-boris-berezovsky-had-left-was-his-pride-then-he-lost-that-too-2zjdjc9x69p</a> <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:17"><p>"Anthea's home snapped up by mystery Russian". Get Surrey. 17 July 2009. Retrieved 23 March 2018. <a href="https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/antheas-home-snapped-up-mystery-4823480" target="_blank">https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/antheas-home-snapped-up-mystery-4823480</a> <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>